Systems and methods for facilitating discovery and management of business information

ABSTRACT

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are provided to assist a user to identify one or more businesses of interest. Individual selections of businesses by end users to retain information corresponding to the businesses may be facilitated. Collections of business information may be retained in a repository. Each end user may be classified into a set of categories based on attributes. A first end user may be matched to a first category. A first set of collection information associated with a first set of end users that correspond to the first category and the first location may be identified. A recommendation for the first end user may be determined based on the first set of collection information, the first category, and the first location.

BACKGROUND

Certain embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally tomanaging business information, and in particular to systems and methodsfor facilitating business discovery and business recommendations.

As value, use, access, and demand corresponding to information continueto increase, consumers demand more of the products and services they usethan ever before. Businesses are expected to compete to provide greaterand greater levels of service and more tailored service offerings.However, searching for, obtaining, managing, and sharing informationabout businesses can be inconvenient and disorderly. Chief among thedifficulties that a consumer often encounters is the amount of time andeffort necessary to search for particular businesses of interest thatare trusted and recommended.

There is a need for systems and methods to streamline businessinformation searching, obtaining, managing, and sharing, and to providegreater availability and quality of tailored service offerings toconsumers. This and other needs are addressed by the present disclosure.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Certain embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally tomanaging business information, and in particular to systems and methodsfor facilitating business discovery and business recommendations.

In one aspect, a method to assist a user to identify one or morebusinesses of interest is provided. The method may include one or acombination of the following, which may be performed by a computersystem. Individual selections, by a plurality of end users, of one ormore businesses to retain information corresponding to the one or morebusinesses may be facilitated. Indicia of selections made by each enduser of the plurality of end users may be processed, the indicia beingreceived by the computer system via a network. Collections of businessinformation in one or more repositories may be retained. Each collectionof the collections of business information: may be uniquely associatedwith a respective end user of the plurality of end users; may includeinformation corresponding to one or more selected businesses of the oneor more businesses that were individually selected by the respective enduser for retention in association with the respective end user; and maybe associated with a respective theme pertaining to the one or moreselected businesses. Each end user of the plurality of end users may beclassified into at least one category of a set of categories, the set ofcategories representing classifications of end users based at least inpart on one or more sets of attributes defined for classifying variousend users. First information enabling unique identification of a firstend user may be processed. Second information about a first locationcorresponding to the first end user may be processed. The first end usermay be matched to a first category from the set of categories, where thefirst end user matches one or more categories from the set ofcategories. A first set of collection information associated with afirst set of end users that correspond to the first category and thefirst location may be identified. A recommendation for the first enduser may be determined based at least in part on the first set ofcollection information, the first category, and the first location,where the recommendation corresponds to a first business that wasindividually selected for retention in association with at least some ofthe first set of end users. Indication of the recommendation to a firstend-user computing device associated with the first end user may becaused, and selection of the first business to retain informationcorresponding to the first business in association with the first enduser may be facilitated.

In another aspect, a system is provided to assist a user to identify oneor more businesses of interest. The system may include one or morenetwork interfaces accessible from a network and one or more processorscoupled to at least one of the one or more network interfaces and to oneor more repositories. The one or more processors may executeinstructions to perform one or a combination of the following.Individual selections, by a plurality of end users, of one or morebusinesses to retain information corresponding to the one or morebusinesses may be facilitated. Indicia of selections made by each enduser of the plurality of end users may be processed, the indicia beingreceived by the computer system via a network. Collections of businessinformation in one or more repositories may be retained. Each collectionof the collections of business information: may be uniquely associatedwith a respective end user of the plurality of end users; may includeinformation corresponding to one or more selected businesses of the oneor more businesses that were individually selected by the respective enduser for retention in association with the respective end user; and maybe associated with a respective theme pertaining to the one or moreselected businesses. Each end user of the plurality of end users may beclassified into at least one category of a set of categories, the set ofcategories representing classifications of end users based at least inpart on one or more sets of attributes defined for classifying variousend users. First information enabling unique identification of a firstend user may be processed. Second information about a first locationcorresponding to the first end user may be processed. The first end usermay be matched to a first category from the set of categories, where thefirst end user matches one or more categories from the set ofcategories. A first set of collection information associated with afirst set of end users that correspond to the first category and thefirst location may be identified. A recommendation for the first enduser may be determined based at least in part on the first set ofcollection information, the first category, and the first location,where the recommendation corresponds to a first business that wasindividually selected for retention in association with at least some ofthe first set of end users. Indication of the recommendation to a firstend-user computing device associated with the first end user may becaused, and selection of the first business to retain informationcorresponding to the first business in association with the first enduser may be facilitated.

In yet another aspect, one or more non-transitory, machine-readablemedia having machine-readable instructions thereon are provided toassist a user to identify one or more businesses of interest, whichinstructions, when executed by one or more computers or other processingdevices, cause the one or more computers or other processing devices toperform one or a combination of the following. Individual selections, bya plurality of end users, of one or more businesses to retaininformation corresponding to the one or more businesses may befacilitated. Indicia of selections made by each end user of theplurality of end users may be processed, the indicia being received bythe computer system via a network. Collections of business informationin one or more repositories may be retained. Each collection of thecollections of business information: may be uniquely associated with arespective end user of the plurality of end users; may includeinformation corresponding to one or more selected businesses of the oneor more businesses that were individually selected by the respective enduser for retention in association with the respective end user; and maybe associated with a respective theme pertaining to the one or moreselected businesses. Each end user of the plurality of end users may beclassified into at least one category of a set of categories, the set ofcategories representing classifications of end users based at least inpart on one or more sets of attributes defined for classifying variousend users. First information enabling unique identification of a firstend user may be processed. Second information about a first locationcorresponding to the first end user may be processed. The first end usermay be matched to a first category from the set of categories, where thefirst end user matches one or more categories from the set ofcategories. A first set of collection information associated with afirst set of end users that correspond to the first category and thefirst location may be identified. A recommendation for the first enduser may be determined based at least in part on the first set ofcollection information, the first category, and the first location,where the recommendation corresponds to a first business that wasindividually selected for retention in association with at least some ofthe first set of end users. Indication of the recommendation to a firstend-user computing device associated with the first end user may becaused, and selection of the first business to retain informationcorresponding to the first business in association with the first enduser may be facilitated.

In various embodiments, data about the first end user may be gatheredfrom one or more data sources, and the data about the first end user maybe analyzed to determine a first set of one or more attributes of thefirst end user. The matching the first end user to the first categorymay be based at least in part on determining that the first set of oneor more attributes of the first end user correspond to the firstcategory. The first set of end users that correspond to the firstcategory may share the first set of one or more attributes in commonwith the first end user. In various embodiments, the one or more datasources may include one or both of the first end user or a third partydata source, and the data about the first end user may includedemographic data. In various embodiments, the first set of one or moreattributes of the first end user may include one or more of ademographic characterization of the first end user, a consumercharacterization of the first end user, and/or a proximity to a lifeevent.

In various embodiments, a set of businesses associated with the firstset of collection information may be ranked based at least in part on afirst metric. The determining the recommendation for the first end usermay include selecting the first business based at least in part on theranking. In various embodiments, the recommendation for the first enduser comprises an offer from the first business.

In various embodiments, the determining the recommendation for the firstend user may include retrieving a second set of collection informationthat is associated with the first end user and that include informationcorresponding to one or more selected businesses of the one or morebusinesses that were individually selected by the first end user forretention. The second set of collection information may be compared withthe first set of collection information associated with the first set ofend users, and one or more similarities may be identified.

Further areas of applicability of the present disclosure will becomeapparent from the detailed description provided hereinafter. It shouldbe understood that the detailed description and specific examples, whileindicating various embodiments, are intended for purposes ofillustration only and are not intended to necessarily limit the scope ofthe disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure is described in conjunction with the followingappended figures.

FIG. 1 is a high-level block diagram of a system, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are high-level block diagrams of one example of abusiness information handling system, in accordance with certainembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a mobile computing device, in accordancewith certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method of certainaspects of a personalized business information orchestration, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method of certainaspects of a personalized business information orchestration, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method of certainaspects of a personalized business information orchestration, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 illustrates a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofpersonalized business information orchestration, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 8A, 8B, 8C, 8D, and 8E are screenshots illustrating exampleend-user interfaces, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a screenshot illustrating an example end-user interface, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 is a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of anend-user interface that may be displayed after navigating/drilling downinto a collaborative collection, in accordance with certain embodimentsof the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 is an example of sharing collection information viasocial/business networking services account postings, in accordance withcertain embodiments.

FIG. 12 is a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of a publicprofile that may be displayed after selection of a link made availablewith posting, in accordance with certain embodiments.

FIG. 13 is a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of theend-user interface that may be displayed after navigating to anotheruser's public collections, in accordance with certain embodiments.

FIG. 14 is a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of a searchinterface, in accordance with certain embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 15 is a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of a searchinterface with business-specific information that may be displayedresponsive to user selection, in accordance with certain embodiments ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 16 is a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of anend-user interface, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIGS. 17A, 17B, and 17C are screen displays illustrating exampleend-user interfaces, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 18 illustrates one embodiment of a merchant dashboard for anadvertising platform that may correspond to a provider interface, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 19 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofend-user qualification, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 20 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofend-user data capture, analytics, and qualification, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 21 illustrates one embodiment of an offer manager for anadvertising platform that may correspond to a provider interface, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 22 is a diagram of an exemplary environment with which embodimentsmay be implemented, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 23 is a diagram of an embodiment of a special-purpose computersystem, in accordance with certain embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 24 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofrecommendation generation, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 25 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method of offerprovisioning where recommendations include offers for particular endusers, in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 26 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method offacilitating features to allow a user of the platform to direct queriesto other users, in accordance with certain embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 27 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofend-user qualification to facilitate querying, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 28 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects of queryrecipient selection, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 29 is an exemplary environment with which embodiments may beimplemented is shown with a computer system that can be used by adesigner to design, for example, electronic designs, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 30 is an embodiment of a special-purpose computer system, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure.

In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have thesame reference label. Further, various components of the same type maybe distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a secondlabel that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the firstreference label is used in the specification, the description isapplicable to any one of the similar components having the same firstreference label irrespective of the second reference label.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The ensuing description provides preferred exemplary embodiment(s) only,and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configurationof the disclosure. Rather, the ensuing description of the preferredexemplary embodiment(s) will provide those skilled in the art with anenabling description for implementing a preferred exemplary embodimentof the disclosure. It should be understood that various changes may bemade in the function and arrangement of elements without departing fromthe spirit and scope of the disclosure as set forth in the appendedclaims.

Specific details are given in the following description to provide athorough understanding of the embodiments. However, it will beunderstood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the embodimentsmaybe practiced without these specific details. For example, circuitsmay be shown in block diagrams in order not to obscure the embodimentsin unnecessary detail. In other instances, well-known circuits,processes, algorithms, structures, and techniques may be shown withoutunnecessary detail in order to avoid obscuring the embodiments.

Also, it is noted that the embodiments may be described as a processwhich is depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a data flow diagram, astructure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart may describethe operations as a sequential process, many of the operations can beperformed in parallel or concurrently. In addition, the order of theoperations may be re-arranged. A process is terminated when itsoperations are completed, but could have additional steps not includedin the figure. A process may correspond to a method, a function, aprocedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. When a process correspondsto a function, its termination corresponds to a return of the functionto the calling function or the main function.

Moreover, as disclosed herein, the term “storage medium” may representone or more devices for storing data, including read only memory (ROM),random access memory (RAM), magnetic RAM, core memory, magnetic diskstorage mediums, optical storage mediums, flash memory devices and/orother machine readable mediums for storing information. The term“computer-readable medium” includes, but is not limited to portable orfixed storage devices, optical storage devices, wireless channels andvarious other mediums capable of storing, containing or carryinginstruction(s) and/or data.

Furthermore, embodiments may be implemented by hardware, software,firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description languages, or anycombination thereof. When implemented in software, firmware, middlewareor microcode, the program code or code segments to perform the necessarytasks may be stored in a machine readable medium such as storage medium.A processor(s) may perform the necessary tasks. A code segment mayrepresent a procedure, a function, a subprogram, a program, a routine, asubroutine, a module, a software package, a class, or any combination ofinstructions, data structures, or program statements. A code segment maybe coupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by passingand/or receiving information, data, arguments, parameters, or memorycontents. Information, arguments, parameters, data, etc. may be passed,forwarded, or transmitted via any suitable means including memorysharing, message passing, token passing, network transmission, etc.

Various embodiments according to the present disclosure may provide forwindowing of business information on one or more of geographical,temporal, demographical, and/or social/business networking bases.Certain embodiments may provide an easy way for consumers to find anddiscover the best local merchants. Certain embodiments may allowconsumers to see which local merchants are popular and trusted aroundthem. Searching by a consumer may become more relevant and personalizedto the consumer's history and business interests. Certain embodimentsmay provide one or more ways in which a user may organize the user'sbusiness relationship information and may automatically manage, update,and maintain relationship information in order to make the user's life alot easier. Various embodiments may allow consumers to create and curatebusiness information collections, add custom content to collections, getupdates from the businesses of interest, see friends' recommendations,and see what businesses are trending in the consumer's local area(s) ofinterest.

A user's personalized business information may be retained in/with alocal graph of merchants of interest to the user. Certain embodimentsmay allow for generating a local graph of merchants, organizing thelocal graph, augmenting the local graph, updating the local graph,exposing the local graph to the user, and/or sharing of the local graphwith one or more third parties, which may include one or more otherusers. Certain embodiments may allow saving of listings information intoone or more collections, and certain embodiments may automaticallyorganize a user's listings into collections. By saving of listinginformation for later use, a user may readily retrieve listinginformation for businesses of interest. Certain embodiments may allow auser to retrieve the user's personalized business information from anysuitable network-connected computing device so that the information isaccessible to the user wherever the user may be.

In some embodiments, organization of business information intocollections may be based on default criteria and/or user-specifiedcriteria. As some potential non-limiting examples of collections, theremay be a home collection, a garden collection, a pet collection, afamily collection, a health collection, a kid's collection, a collectioncustomized to a specific project, etc. A collection may allow forretrieval of listings at any time.

Business listing information associated with a collection may beautomatically updated by the information handling system such that, whenlisting information is retrieved from a collection, the listinginformation may be updated information. Thus, a collection allows forthe maintenance of listing information of interest to provide a userwith the most up-to-date listing information for the businesses thatmatter to the user. And, thus, if a provider associated with acollection has moved or changed phone numbers, the user will not be leftwith obsolete information (as the user would otherwise be if suchinformation was recorded into an address book) because the change may becaptured so that the collection would be automatically updated with thenew information.

Certain embodiments may provide an automated workflow to gauge a user'sinterests. The automated workflow may include a series of questionspresented to the user, the answers to which, as provided by userselections, may indicate user interests. A user's interests may be usedas one or more bases for prompting the user according to variousembodiments disclosed herein.

Certain embodiments may provide the option for a user to create a customcollection. For example, a user could create a custom collection for akitchen remodeling project. Providers that are helping, and/or couldpotentially help, the user with the project could be associated with thecollection, with notes on them, indicia of whether the user likesparticular providers or not, which providers have been contacted,information obtained from providers, which providers have been selected,etc.

A collection may allow for addition of notes by a user to a listing or agroup of listings in the collection. Some embodiments could provide apreference indication feature and/or a rating feature for a user to ratea provider. The preference indication feature could include auser-selectable option allowing a user to indicate a preference for aprovider in any suitable manner. The rating feature could include auser-selectable option presenting ratings for selection in any suitablemanner.

Thus, a user can record notes about what might be interesting to theuser. For example, the user may note having talked to so-and-so, and maygenerally keep track of various things related to one or more businessesof interest. For example, a user may be planning a project, say akitchen remodeling project, and may wish to keep track of variousaspects related to the project, such as impressions, progress,schedules, ideas, interactions, quotes, deals, and so forth, so that itis all in one place.

Certain embodiments may provide a user with reminders about variousaspects of a collection, such as deals and offers, schedule reminders,how long it is been since the user interacted with a given business,whether the user needs to check in with a given business, and/or thelike. Certain embodiments may help a user track interactions withbusinesses. Where the user has been and/or has not been recently may betracked, for example. For example, the user's last interaction, whetherit be a visit or otherwise, with a given restaurant could be tracked andlogged with the business information for the restaurant in a particularcollection. Such aspects could be managed for the user. As anotherexample, a user's interaction with one or more dentists could bemanaged, such as the user's last cleaning, when the user was lastsearching for dentists, etc., and, based on such information, remindersand/or suggestions (such as other possible dentists of interest, forexample, highly rated dentists in an area of interest to the user thatthe user may not have considered and which may have special offers)could be presented.

Certain embodiments may provide the option for a user to allow one ormore collaborators to have access to a collection. A collaborator couldbe another user in some embodiments. An enlist option could be presentedto the user to allow the user to enlist another user as a collaborator.A collaborator could have a viewing access and, in some embodiments,editing access and/or access to add content such that the collaboratormay add notes, photos, preference indicia, ratings indicia, etc. Someembodiments may allow the user to determine a level of access granted toa collaborator. Certain embodiments may provide the option for a user toshare a collection with a third party. Accordingly, the variousembodiments directed to information sharing may facilitate organizationand engagement with a local business community.

Certain embodiments may provide significant value to businesses throughenabling a direct, but low-maintenance, relationships with consumers.Significant value to businesses may also be provided via a businessplatform that exposes market and consumer insights. Certain embodimentsmay provide businesses with visibility into their consumers and mayprovide an easy way to communicate and market to their customers, forexample, by marketing events, pushing offers to customers, drivingawareness of new products and services, responding to inquiries, etc.Embodiments may provide multiple customer touch points, which, in turn,may allow for better metrics and targeting.

Certain embodiments may provide business-specific recommendations tousers. Certain embodiments may provide for harvesting of consumer data.The consumer data may be analyzed with respect to individual users. Oneor more categories for the individual users may be determined based onthe analysis, and certain embodiments may facilitate the provisioning ofbusiness recommendations pertinent to the one or more categories to theindividual users. The recommendations could be based at least in part onaggregated recommendations of other users. Information aboutrecommendations of other users could be gathered, analyzed, andclassified according to any suitable bases. For example, aggregatedrecommendations could be classified according to user types. Analysis ofinformation about an identified user could entail comparing the userinformation to information about other users (e.g., to determine usersimilarities) in order to recommend businesses (e.g., others' favoriteor otherwise preferred businesses) for the identified user to review.The system may then send indications to the identified user ofsubscribers regarding options corresponding to the rated content.

In a set of embodiments, recommendations could be based at least in parton demographic information. The demographic information could includeinformation about income level, education level, lifestyle, age,family/household, home ownership, etc. Recommendations could be based atleast in part on any suitable consumer-specific information. Forexample, such consumer-specific information could include information onwhether the consumer is proximate to life milestones such as agraduation, a new job, a wedding, childbirth, purchasing a home, etc.Accordingly, certain embodiments may use cluster-based consumer dataand/or user-targeted consumer data.

In a set of embodiments, one or more collaborative filtering algorithmsmay be employed to define similarities between businesses based at leastin part on consumer data. One or more indexes may be created based onsimilarities between businesses. With respect to a particular user, theuser may be identified based on user identification information and/ordevice identification information for a device that may be associatedwith a user. Information related to the user and/or specific to the usermay be gathered and analyzed in view of the one or more indexes to matchthe user with a set of one or more recommendations.

The aggregated recommendation information could be anonymized in someembodiments so that one or more specific recommendations are offered toan individual user without revealing identities of other users from whomthe one or more specific recommendations are derived. Though anonymized,a specific recommendation could be offered with a generalcharacterization of the other users. As one example out of manypossibilities, a recommendation for a dog owner in Glendale, Calif.,could indicate that other dog owners in Glendale have a preference for aparticular veterinarian.

In some embodiments, aggregated recommendation information may not beanonymized. Certain users of the platform may have public recommendationinformation. Real estate agents, for example, may curate a collection oflocal service providers relevant to those who have bought or in theprocess of buying a house in a particular area (such as recommendedinspectors, handymen, and the like) and may wish to have suchrecommendations public. Accordingly, recommendations may not necessarilybe anonymized.

In some embodiments, the recommendations may include a customizedcollection of advertising information for businesses. The customizedcollection may be automatically generated by the system for anindividual user based on the analysis. The customized collection may bepresented to the user as a curated collection with user-selectableoptions that allow the user to select and/or de-select recommendedbusinesses for retention in association with the user. For example, theuser may select one or more recommended businesses for additions to anew or existing collection of the user. As another example, the user mayselect a recommended collection for addition as a new collection or foraddition to an existing collection.

Various embodiments will now be discussed in greater detail withreference to the accompanying figures, beginning with FIG. 1.

FIG. 1 depicts a high-level block diagram of a system 100, in accordancewith certain embodiments of the present disclosure. The system 100 mayallow for transfer of information from and/or to a business informationhandling system 102 and an end user 104. An end-user 104, in someembodiments, may correspond to a consumer of products, services, and/orinformation. In some embodiments, system 100 may also allow for transferof information from and/or to one or more providers 106 and/or one ormore data sources 110. A provider 106, in various embodiments, maycorrespond to (and may be variously referenced herein by) any one orcombination of a service provider, a product provider, a merchant, abusiness, an advisor, a representative, an advertiser, and/or the like.As depicted, the providers 106 may be communicatively coupled orcouplable to a network 108 through one or more service providerinterfaces 105.

The network 108 may be any suitable means to facilitate data transfer inthe system 100. In various embodiments, the network 108 may beimplemented with, without limitation, one or more of the Internet, awide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), a wireless localarea network (WLAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), a cellularnetwork, such as through 4G, 3G, GSM, etc., another wireless network, agateway, and/or any other appropriate architecture or system thatfacilitates the communication of signals, data, and/or message. Thenetwork 108 may transmit data using any suitable communication protocol.The network 108 and its various components may be implemented usinghardware, software, and communications media such wires, optical fibers,microwaves, radio waves, and other electromagnetic and/or opticalcarriers, and/or any combination of the foregoing. In some embodiments,the network 108 may include a telephone network that may be circuitswitched, package switched, or partially circuit switched and partiallypackage switched. For example, the telephone network may partially usethe Internet to carry phone calls (e.g., through VoIP).

The business information handling system 102 may be communicativelycoupled or couplable to the network 108. In various embodiments, thebusiness information handling system 102 may include any device or setof devices configured to compute, process, organize, categorize,qualify, send, receive, retrieve, generate, convey, store, display,present, detect, handle, and/or use any form of information and/or datasuitable for embodiments described herein. The business informationhandling system 102 could include a single computing device, a server,for example, or multiple computing devices, which may be implemented inor with a distributed computing and/or cloud computing environment witha plurality of servers and cloud-implemented resources. Thus, thebusiness information handling system 102 may include one or moreservers. The business information handling system 102 may include one ormore processing resources communicatively coupled to one or more storagemedia, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), and/or othertypes of memory. The business information handling system 102 mayinclude any one or combination of various input and output (I/O)devices, network ports, and display devices.

According to certain embodiments, the business information handlingsystem 102 may be or include a provider management platform. A provider106 may access the business information handling system 102 via aprovider interface 107. An end user 104 may access the businessinformation handling system 102 via an end-user interface 105. Thebusiness information handling system 102 may facilitate searching of oneor more information repositories in response to information receivedover the network 108 from the end-user interfaces 105 and/or providerinterfaces 107.

The end-user interfaces 105 and/or provider interfaces 107 may allow fortransfer of and access to information in accordance with certainembodiments disclosed herein. In various embodiments, the end-userinterface(s) 105 and/or service provider interface(s) 107 may includeany suitable input/output module or other system/device operable toserve as an interface between a service provider(s) 106 and the providermanagement platform. The end-user interfaces 105 and/or providerinterfaces 107 may facilitate communication over the network 108 usingany suitable transmission protocol and/or standard. In variousembodiments, the business information handling system 102 may include,provide, and/or be configured for operation with the end-user interfaces105 and/or provider interfaces 107, for example, by making availableand/or communicating with one or more of a website, a web page, a webportal, a web application, a mobile application, enterprise software,and/or any suitable application software. In some embodiments, anend-user interface 105 and/or provider interface 107 may include anapplication programming interface (API).

In some embodiments, an end-user interface 105 and/or a providerinterface 107 may include a web interface. In some embodiments, theend-user interface 105 and/or provider interface 107 may include or workwith an application made available to one or more interfaces, such as amobile application as discussed herein. In some embodiments, theend-user interface 105 and/or provider interface 107 may cause a webpage to be displayed on a browser of a service provider 105. The webpage(s) may display output and receive input from a user (e.g., by usingWeb-based forms, via hyperlinks, electronic buttons, etc.). A variety oftechniques can be used to create the web pages and/or display/receiveinformation, such as JavaScript, Java applications or applets, dynamicHTML and/or AJAX technologies. Accordingly, the business informationhandling system 102 may have web site(s)/portal(s) giving access to suchinformation, such as a provider portal.

In various embodiments, an end-user interface 105 and/or a providerinterface 107 may include providing one or more display screen imagesthat may each include one or more user interface elements. A userinterface may include any text, image, and/or device that can bedisplayed on a display screen for providing information to a user and/orfor receiving user input. A user interface may include one or morewidgets, text, text boxes, text fields, tables, grids, charts,hyperlinks, buttons, lists, combo boxes, checkboxes, radio buttons,and/or the like.

In certain embodiments, an end-user interface 105 and/or a providerinterface 107 may include a computing device of an end user 104 and/or aservice provider 105. In certain embodiments, a provider interface 107may include a mobile computing device that may be any portable devicesuitable for sending and receiving information over a network inaccordance with embodiments described herein. For example withoutlimitation, in various embodiments, the computing device may include oneor more devices variously referenced as a desktop computer, mobilephone, a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a handheld mobile device, atablet computer, a web pad, a personal digital assistant (PDA), anotebook computer, a handheld computer, a laptop computer, and/or thelike.

According to certain embodiments, the business information handlingsystem 102 may be or include an advertising platform. As previouslynoted, one or more providers 106 may correspond to one or moreadvertisers. In some embodiments, the business information handlingsystem 102 may provide for the selection and provision of advertisementsto one or more end-user interfaces 105. In certain embodiments,providers 106 may have advertisements that may be placed in a web pagemade available to one or more end-user interfaces 105. In certainembodiments, providers 106 may have advertisements that may be displayedwith an application made available to one or more end-user interfaces105, such as a mobile application according to various embodiments. Insome embodiments, placement of the advertisements could be in accordancewith one or more paid placement arrangements and one or more advertisingmodels.

Advertisements may be included in a results page responsive to a keywordsearch initiated by an end user 104 via, for example, a webpage and/or amobile application. The search may be performed by an online searchengine facilitated by the business information handling system 102. Anadvertisement of provider 106 may be included within a results page withresults identified and/or compiled by the search engine and sent via thenetwork 108 to the end-user interface 105 of the end user 104 thatinitiated the search.

In certain embodiments, the business information handling system 102 maybe communicatively coupled or couplable to one or more data sources 110.The one or more data sources 110 may include any suitable source ofdata. In various embodiments, a data source 110 may include any one ormore or combination of a database, a website, any repository of data inany suitable form, and/or a third party. In various embodiments, the oneor more data sources 110 may correspond to one or more social mediawebsites and/or photo-sharing websites.

According to certain embodiments, data may be actively gathered and/orpulled from data sources 110, for example, by accessing/crawling a datasource repository. In various embodiments, the data from the one or moredata sources 110 may be retrieved and/or received by the businessinformation handling system 102 via the network 108 and/or through anyother suitable means of transferring data. For example, in someembodiments, the business information handling system 102 and the datasources 110 could use any suitable means for direct communication. Otherinterface(s) 111 may facilitate communication with data source(s) 110,and, in various embodiments, may be implemented in similar manner tointerfaces 105 and/or 107 or any other suitable interface.

FIGS. 2A and 2B show high-level block diagrams of a business informationhandling system 102-1, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. The business information handling system 102-1 maycorrespond to the business information handling system 102 of FIG. 1,but one embodiment of the business information handling system 102 isshown in more detail. While engines, modules, repositories, and othercomponents are described separately herein, it should be appreciatedthat the components may be combined and/or implemented differently inany combination to provide certain features in various embodiments. Invarious embodiments, different processes running on one or more sharedcomputers may implement some of the components.

As depicted, the business information handling system 102 may includeone or more processors 116 communicatively coupled to one or morememories 118. The business information handling system 102 may includeone or more network interfaces 120 communicatively coupled to processors116. In certain embodiments, one or more processors 116, one or morememories 118, and/or one or more network interfaces 120 may correspondto one or more servers, which may include communication servers, webservers, gateways, application servers, database servers, and/or one ormore other types of servers. In certain embodiments, the businessinformation handling system 102 may be implemented in or with adistributed computing and/or cloud computing environment with aplurality of servers and cloud-implemented processing, memory, and dataresources. Thus, with accretion of service information, the system mayallow for scaling out with additional processing resources, serverresources, data storage resources, data management resources, and thelike. Some embodiments may use different types of servers to servicedifferent types of computing devices. The network interface(s) 120 mayinclude any suitable input/output module or other system/device operableto serve as an interface between one or more components of the businessinformation handling system 102 and the network 108. The businessinformation handling system 102 may use the network interfaces 120 tocommunicate over the network 108 using any suitable transmissionprotocol and/or standard.

In some embodiments, one or more servers may communicate via one or moretypes of communication protocols, such as HyperText Transfer Protocol(HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Wireless Application Protocol(WAP), etc. A server may provide static web pages, dynamic web pages,web services, web applications to a computing device of an end user orprovider for execution in a web browser running on the computing device,scripts for execution within an isolated environment in a browser,and/or rich-client applications to the computing device that may haveaccess to functions of the operating system running on the computingdevice.

Certain embodiments may provide a multi-channel communication regime tocoordinate multiple communication channels used by end users andproviders. Multiple communication pipes within a communication pipecould be implemented according to certain embodiments. Some embodimentsmay implement a greater number of communication channels. For example,one set of channels could be used for a consumer to request help, andone set of channels could be used for a provider to respond to the enduser. The system can use web communication, text communication, voicecommunication, e-mail communication, push notification, and/or the like.

The business information handling system 102 may include one or moredata repositories 128. One or more data repositories 128 may retain anyinformation suitable for embodiments of this disclosure. The datarepositories 128 may include database(s), database management system(s),server(s) to facilitate management/provision/transfer of informationrelated to embodiments of this disclosure. In various embodiments, thedata repositories 128 may be implemented in various ways. For example,one or more relational or object-oriented databases, or flat files onone or more computers or networked storage devices, may store theinformation. It should be appreciated that information corresponding tothe repositories may be stored elsewhere and/or in other ways, or maynot be stored, depending on the implementations chosen. Likewise, whilevarious segregations of information corresponding to the repositoriesare provided herein, it should be appreciated that such examples arenon-limiting, and some or all the information may be handled in anysuitable manner.

In some embodiments, the one or more data repositories 128 may includeone or more authentication information repositories 130 may retain anyauthentication information suitable to facilitate security forembodiments of this disclosure. The authentication informationrepositories 130 may include database(s), database management system(s),server(s) to facilitate management/provision/transfer of authenticationinformation, and/or the like. The repositories 130 may retainauthentication information of one or more particular end users 104,providers 106, and/or other data sources 110. The authenticationinformation may include information to check credentials of end users104, providers 106, and/or other data sources 110 that may use one oftheir corresponding interfaces to seek access, transfer information,and/or make business-related transactions with business informationhandling system 102. The authentication information may be used toprovide security for transactions, restrict the access granted to acertain set of information and/or features, implement certain controland/or features for certain parties, and/or the like.

The one or more data repositories 128 may include one or more providerinformation repositories 132. The one or more provider informationrepositories 132 may retain provider information of particular providers106. The repositories 132 may retain any information related toproviders, including businesses and people, which may have streetaddresses or other location parameters, such as longitude and latitudecoordinates, maps, driving directions, and/or the like, stored aslocations in one or more location information repositories 134. Forexample, one or more provider information repositories 132 may retainany information related to provider identification information, providerprofiles, provider certification information, business description,product descriptions, service descriptions,ratings/reviews/comments/preference indicia associated with providers,provider websites, provider pricing information, provider authenticationinformation, provider statuses, provider relationships, organizationdetails, payment methods, accounting information, credit information,asset information, collateral information, address information, contactinformation, business hours, availability, user account information,advertisements, announcements, and/or the like.

As illustrated in FIG. 2B, provider information may include local graphinformation 132(a). The local graph information 132(a) may includemapping information about a provider's connections to collections,windows, end users, and/or the like via the orchestration service. Thelocal graph information 132(a) may include classification informationabout a provider and relation to user interest data and businesscategories. Generally, the local graph information 132(a) may includeany information to facilitate provider inclusion in the orchestrationplatform in accordance with various embodiments described herein.

Provider information may include analytics information 132(b). Theanalytics information 132(b) may include any performance informationrelated to particular providers, including any end-user data analyticsrelated to particular providers. Provider information may include offerinformation 132(c) retained for particular providers. The offerinformation 132(c) may include offers that particular providers havecreated, business rules associated with provisioning offers to endusers, and/or the like. Provider information may include linked accountinformation 132(d). The linked account information 132(d) may includeinformation about a provider's account(s) that are linked with theorchestration system, such authentication information for linkedaccounts, which accounts may include email accounts, short messagingaccounts, online social/business networking accounts, and/or the like.The analytics information 132(b), the offer information 132(c), and thelinked account information 132(d) may include any information tofacilitate various features of one or more provider interfaces, inaccordance with certain embodiments herein.

In some embodiments, the one or more data repositories 128 may includeone or more end-user information repositories 136 to retain any suitableinformation associated with users in accordance with various embodimentsdisclosed herein. The end-user information may include end-useridentification information, payment methods, accounting information,contact information, user account information, and/or the like. One ormore end-user information repositories 136 may retain any informationrelated to end-user location information 136(a), curation information136(b), interest information 136(c) related to end user (which mayinclude information related to indicia of interest), linked accountinformation 136(d), and/or the like. The curation information 136(b) mayinclude local graph information, which may include information aboutproviders of interest, providers that have been added to a user'scollection, geo-specific criteria for end user collections/profile,business information otherwise associated with the end user (which mayinclude collection followings, e.g.), notes by the end user, photosand/or other images associated with the end user, preferences of the enduser, arrangement/organizational particulars for business informationassociated with the end user, end-user requests, and/or any suitableinformation to facilitate any one or combination of the personalcuration features described herein. The linked account information136(d) may include information about an end user's account(s) that arelinked with the orchestration system, end-user notification profiles,end-user authentication information, and/or any information tofacilitate various features of one or more end-user interfaces, inaccordance with certain embodiments herein.

In some embodiments, a computing device 105 may store end-userinformation 136. In some embodiments, both the computing device 105 andthe online data repository(ies) 128 store the end-user information 136for a particular end user 104. In some embodiments, when there is a datacommunication connection between the computing device 105 and the onlinedata repository(ies) 128, the computing device 105 and the online datarepository(ies) 128 may synchronize their copies of the end-userinformation 136 for the end user 104.

Referring again to FIG. 2A, the provider information 132 may beassociated with locations 134. In various embodiments, the locations 134may be part of the service provider information 132, or otherwiseassociated therewith. In some embodiments, the one or more datarepositories 128 may include one or more taxonomy informationrepositories 138 to retain any suitable information associated withtaxonomy feature in accordance with various embodiments disclosedherein. For example, one or more taxonomy information repositories 138may retain mapping information, classification information, scoringcriteria, and/or the like. Information retained in one or more taxonomyinformation repositories 138 may be used to classify user interestdata/indicia, classify businesses, map user interests, businesses,and/or interest categories, and/or otherwise correlate and organizeinformation in accordance with various embodiments disclosed herein.

The business information handling system 102 may include one or moreinformation management handling engines 122 that may be stored in one ormore memories 118 and may provide functionality when executed by one ormore processors 116 to provide enhanced service provider handlingfeatures described herein. While the engines 122 are shown separately,it should be appreciated that in various embodiments the one or moreengines 122 may be implemented collectively and/or integrally. Theengines 122 may be configured to perform any of the steps of methodsdescribed in the present disclosure.

In some embodiments, one or more of the engines 122 and/or other modulesmay be servers communicating with the server(s). The servercommunication may be over a network, such as a local area network, awide area network, an intranet, Internet, and/or the like. Any one orcombination of the various servers may run on common or separatecomputers. In some embodiments, there may be one or more layers ofapplication servers between communication servers and the datarepository(ies) 128 to process the business logic and data access of therich client applications. Alternatively, application servers may beintegrated with the communication servers.

In some embodiments, one or more servers may provide listingsinformation 132 with links to detail information, such as a map,business hours, driving directions, etc. The server(s) may provide userinterfaces for the users to rate the listings information 132, providereviews, view reviews from other users, make reservations via thelistings information 132, make purchases via the listings information132, etc. The server(s) can track various different types of userinteractions with the listings to determine or estimate the level ofuser interest in the listings. The servers may provide rich clientapplications for execution in the mobile computing device to provide theuser interfaces. The server(s) may be communicatively coupled to one ormore of a location engine(s) 122(a), a search engine(s) 122(b), an areaselector(s) 146(c), and/or a sort engine(s) 146(d) to process the searchrequest and present search results based on the information stored inone or more data repositories 128.

In some embodiments, the location engine(s) 122(a) may include one ormore engines and may use GPS coordinates, cellular tower triangulationtechniques, Wi-Fi-based location information, carrier-provided locationinformation, and/or other location determination systems to identify alocation of the computing device 105. In some embodiments, the locationengine 122(a) determines a location of interest to the end user 104related to a search request. The location of interest may be based on alocation of the computing device 105. In some embodiments, the end user104 may explicitly specify the location of interest in a search request;and the location engine 122(a) extracts the location of interest fromthe search request. In some embodiments, a location of interest may bebased on end-user information stored for a particular end user 104 andassociated with identification information of the end user 104 or thecomputing device 105. In some embodiments, the end user 104 may specifysome or all of the end-user information.

In some embodiments, the location engine 122(a) may automaticallyidentify the location of interest based on determining the currentlocation of the computing device 105 that is used to submit a searchrequest and/or initiate a phone call. For example, the location engine122(a) may determine the location of the computing device 92 based on aconnection point the computing device 105 used to access the network 108(e.g., based on the location of a wireless network access point, a basestation of a cellular communication system, or a connection point to awired network). In some embodiments, the computing device 105automatically determines its current position (e.g., via a satellitepositioning system, or a cellular positioning system) and transmits thedetermined or estimated position to the system 102 with the searchrequest, or provides the position in response to a request from thelocation engine 122(a).

In some embodiments, the search engine 122(b) may retrieve informationfrom the data repository(ies) 123 according to a search request. Thesearch engine 122(b) may include logic for implementing searching of oneor more information repositories. Other engines 122 may include and/orutilize the search engine 122(b) in various embodiments. The searchingmay be in response to information received over the network 94 from auser. Responsive to a query, the search engine 122(b) may search,retrieve, modify, and/or cause transfer of particular information fromone or more information repositories.

The sort engine 122(c) may rank the information according to variousbases discussed with embodiments herein. In various embodiments, thearea selector 122(d) may be configured to select areas of interest inaccordance with various embodiments described herein. In someembodiments, the area selector 122(d) may select a first geographic areabased on the location of interest identified by the location engine122(a). The search engine 122(b) may then retrieve a first set ofservice provider information that have corresponding locations withinthe selected first geographic area and that satisfies the searchcriteria, and, if sufficient results are not found for the firstgeographic area, a second geographic area may be selected in aniterative process, which second area may or may not include the firstgeographic area, for searching. In some embodiments, the search engine122(b) may search for service provider information in a target area toobtain a set of search results; the area selector 122(d) may selectgeographic areas and may select groups of results that are within theselected geographic areas respectively.

In some embodiments, the interface handling engine(s) 122(e) may includelogic to send, present, and receive information, with one or more of theinterfaces to/from one or more consumers, service providers, and/or datasources. The interface handling engine(s) 122(e), with one or more theprocessors 116, may utilize one or more network interfaces 120 totransceive information through the network 108. The system 102 may pulland/or push information from those entities in any suitable way.

In some embodiments, the account management engine(s) 122(f) may includelogic for implementing account features in various embodiments. By wayof example without limitation, the account management engine(s) 122(f)may include logic one or more aspects of: handling user registration;managing account creation, updates, authentication, handling; and/or thelike. The account management engine(s) 122(f) may be configured foracquiring, processing, formatting, and/or storing authenticationinformation in the one or more authentication repositories 128.

In some embodiments, the information orchestration engine(s) 122(g) mayinclude logic for implementing any features of personalizedorchestration of business information in various embodiments disclosedherein. In some embodiments, the information orchestration engine(s)122(g) may facilitate an application on the end-user device to provideany such features. In some embodiments, the information orchestrationengine(s) 122(g) may be incorporated in the application. In someembodiments, the information orchestration engine(s) 122(g) may includelogic to implement and/or otherwise facilitate any taxonomy,classification, categorization, correlation, mapping, qualification,scoring, organization, and/or the like features discussed herein. Theinformation orchestration engine(s) 122(g) may include interest dataanalytics modules may include logic to retrieve, process, derive,compile, aggregate, handle, store, report, and/or present informationrelating to interest data. In certain embodiments, the informationorchestration engine(s) 122(g) may be configured to compile keywordcriteria, for example, in an ontology, and could include an ontologyreasoner or semantic reasoning module to make logical inferences from aset of facts in the ontology. Accordingly, the information orchestrationengine(s) 122(g) may correspond to a reasoning engine configured toeffect one or more features discusses herein. A pattern-based reasonercould be employed to use various statistical techniques in analyzinginterest data in order to make inferences based on the analysis. Atransitive reasoner could be employed to infer relationships from a setof relationships related to interest data. In certain embodiments, theinformation orchestration engine(s) 122(g) may include logic forimplementing workflow features in various embodiments.

In some embodiments, the logging engine(s) 122(h) may include logic forimplementing information logging features in various embodiments. By wayof example without limitation, the logging engine(s) 122(h) couldprocess data pulled and/or pushed from various entities. The loggingengine(s) 122(h) could handle process, extracting, formatting, and/orstoring/recording data including data for indicia of interest,preference data, taxonomy data, mapping data, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, one or more end-user data analytics engines 122(i)may include logic to retrieve, process, derive, compile, aggregate,handle, store, report, and/or present information relating to end-userdata. The performance analytics engine(s) 122(i) may be configured topresent any desirable information in any desirable manner. With respectto a particular provider, the logging engine(s) 122(h) and end-user dataanalytics engine(s) 122(i) may facilitate various features of one ormore provider interfaces, in accordance with certain embodiments herein(e.g., interfaces 1800, 2100).

In some embodiments, one computer system implements one or more of thecomponents of the system 102. Alternatively, different processes runningon one or more shared computers may implement some of the components.For example, one computing module, thread, or process may implementmultiple of the components. In some embodiments, special purpose dataprocessing systems implement the one or more of the components. In someembodiments, processes running according to software instructions ongeneral purpose data processing systems, such as general purposepersonal computers or server computers, can implement the components.Thus, the implementations are not limited to particular hardware,software, or particular combinations of hardware and software.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of a mobile computing device 300,which may correspond to one or more of interfaces 105, 107, and/or 111,according to certain embodiments of the present disclosure. In someembodiments, the mobile computing device 300 may be provided with amobile application 351 configured to run on the mobile computing device300 to facilitate various embodiments of this disclosure. The mobilecomputing device 300 may be any portable device suitable for sending andreceiving information over a network in accordance with embodimentsdescribed herein. For example without limitation, in variousembodiments, the mobile computing device 300 may include one or morevariously referenced as a mobile phone, a cellular telephone, asmartphone, a handheld mobile device, a tablet computer, a web pad, apersonal digital assistant (PDA), a notebook computer, a handheldcomputer, a laptop computer, a vehicle computer, or the like.

As shown in FIG. 3, the mobile computing device 300 includes a display330 and input elements 332 to allow a user to input information into themobile computing device 300. By way of example without limitation, theinput elements 332 may include one or more of a keypad, a trackball, atouchscreen, a touchpad, a pointing device, a microphone, a voicerecognition device, or any other appropriate mechanism for the user toprovide input. The mobile computing device 300 includes a memory 334communicatively coupled to a processor 336 (e.g., a microprocessor) forprocessing the functions of the mobile computing device 300. The mobilecomputing device 300 may include at least one antenna 338 for wirelessdata transfer.

The mobile computing device 300 may also include a microphone 340 toallow a user to transmit voice communication through the mobilecomputing device 300, and a speaker 342 to allow the user to hear voicecommunication, music, etc. In addition, the mobile computing device 300may include one or more interfaces in addition to the antenna 338, e.g.,a wireless interface coupled to an antenna. The communicationsinterfaces 344 can provide a near field communication interface (e.g.,contactless interface, Bluetooth, optical interface, etc.) and/orwireless communications interfaces capable of communicating through acellular network, such as GSM, or through Wi-Fi, such as with a wirelesslocal area network (WLAN). Accordingly, the mobile computing device 300may be capable of transmitting and receiving information wirelesslythrough both short range, radio frequency (RF) and cellular and Wi-Ficonnections.

Additionally, the mobile computing device 300 can be capable ofcommunicating with a Global Positioning System (GPS) in order todetermine to location of the mobile computing device 300. In theembodiment shown in FIG. 3, the antenna 338 may include a cellularantenna (e.g., for sending and receiving cellular voice and datacommunication, such as through a network such as a 3G or 4G network),and interfaces 344 may include one or more local communicationinterfaces. The antenna 338 may include GPS receiver functionality. Inother embodiments contemplated herein, communication with the mobilecomputing device 300 may be conducted with a single antenna configuredfor multiple purposes (e.g., cellular, transactions, GPS, etc.), or withfurther interfaces (e.g., three, four, or more separate interfaces).

The mobile computing device 300 can also include at least onecomputer-readable medium 346 coupled to the processor 336, which storesapplication programs and other computer code instructions for operatingthe device, such as an operating system (OS) 348. The mobile application351 may be stored in the memory 334 and/or computer-readable media 346.The computer-readable medium 346 can include a mapping application insome embodiments. In certain embodiments, the mapping application 346(a)can automatically run each time that a user accesses the mobileapplication 351.

The computer-readable medium 346 can also include an image-processingengine 346(b). The image-processing engine 346(b) can capture an imageand compress the image in a format readable by a central processingserver. With some embodiments, the image-processing engine 346(b) isseparate from the mobile application 351. In other embodiments, themobile application 351 may include the image-processing engine 346(b).

The computer-readable medium 346 on the mobile computing device 336 canalso include a locator query engine 346(c), which allows a user to entera word or phrase to locate an item, location, business, services, etc.With some embodiments, the locator query engine 346(c) is separate fromthe mobile application 351. In other embodiments, the mobile application351 may include the locator query engine 346(c).

The mobile computing device 336 can additionally include an integratedcamera 350, capable of capturing images and/or video, and outputelements 352. In certain embodiments, the mobile computing device 336may include a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, e.g.,memory 334, for storing images captured with the camera 350. Inalternative embodiments, the mobile computing device 336 receives imagedata from an image capture device that is not integrated with the mobilecomputing device 336 and stores those images on the aforementionednon-transitory storage medium.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method 400 ofcertain aspects of a personalized business information orchestration, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Accordingto certain embodiments, the method 400 may begin as indicated by block402. Teachings of the present disclosure may be implemented in a varietyof configurations. As such, the order of the steps comprising the method400 may be shuffled in any suitable manner and may depend on theimplementation chosen. Moreover, while the following steps may beseparated for the sake of description, it should be understood thatcertain steps may be performed simultaneously or substantiallysimultaneously.

One aspect of personalized business information orchestration maycorrespond to an end-user onboarding phase. The onboarding may includeapplication initialization stage, as indicated by block 402. In someembodiments, the application could correspond to a webpage. In someembodiments, the end user could be using a mobile computing device. Insome embodiments, a mobile application configured to run on a mobilecomputing device may be provided for the end user's mobile computingdevice. For example, the mobile application may be made available fromthe system 102 or any website for download to the mobile computingdevice; alternatively, it may be pre-installed on the mobile computingdevice and stored in the device's memory and/or computer-readable media.An end user installing a mobile application may correspond toinitializing a client application on a computing device in someembodiments.

The end-user interface provided by the platform may facilitate theonboarding phase. In various embodiments, an end-user interface mayinclude providing one or more display screens that may each include oneor more user interface elements. An end-user interface may include anytext, image, and/or device that can be displayed on a display screen forproviding information to a user and/or for receiving user input. Anend-user interface may include one or more widgets, text, text boxes,text fields, tables, grids, charts, maps, hyperlinks, buttons, lists,combo boxes, checkboxes, radio buttons, and/or the like.

FIGS. 8A, 8B, 8C, 8D, and 8E are screenshots illustrating exampleend-user interfaces 800, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. FIG. 8A illustrates a graphical user interface 802that may be used in implementations of certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. FIG. 8A shows a screenshot, which may be a partialscreenshot, of a search interface 802 that may be displayed via a mobileapplication or any suitable end-user interface 105 in variousembodiments. In some embodiments, a webpage could implement a same orsimilar search interface, for example.

The search interface 802 can be displayed at a user device 300, forexample. A query field 804 may be configured for input of keywordinformation for a search by a user, for example, via text entry and/orvoice entry. In some embodiments, the search interface 802 may alsoinclude a location field 806 for location information to indicate alocation of interest related to the keyword information for the searchinput by the user, for example, via text entry and/or voice entry. Thelocation field 806 could automatically indicate a default location forthe user automatically determined based any suitable locationidentification method, such as one or more of the locationidentification methods disclosed herein, including user history, a userprofile, and/or the user's current location as detected by GPS, cellularpositioning, network access point, and/or the like.

The search interface 802 can present user-selectable options 808 forquick searches according to any suitable category. The search interface802 can present user-selectable options 810 related to one or morepersonalized collections of business information. The options 810 couldcorrespond to an initialization process for a user to set up one or morepersonalized collections of business information; the options 810 couldcorrespond to a navigational feature that enables the user to navigateto one or more personalized collections that have already been set up.

Referring again to FIG. 4, the onboarding phase of personalized businessinformation orchestration may include a user profile stage, as indicatedby block 404. A user profile may be created along with initialization ofan application or embodiments for along with registering as a user viawebpage in some embodiments. The user profile may be createdautomatically for the user, and user may be able to thereafter customizethe profile. A user profile may include persistent information that ismaintained about an end user. A user profile may include any data storedin an end-user information repository whether or not it is part of theprofile as shown to an end-user via an end-user portal.

A personalized collection utility may include various features foridentifying a user's interests. In some embodiments, as indicated byblock 406, one or more questions may be presented to the user to gauge auser's interests. In certain embodiments, an automated question flow maypresent a series of questions presented to the user, the answers towhich, as provided by user selections, may indicate user interests.

In some embodiments, organization of business information intocollections may be based on default criteria and/or user-specifiedcriteria. As some potential non-limiting examples of collections, theremay be a home collection, a garden collection, a pet collection, afamily collection, a health collection, a kids collection, a collectioncustomized to a specific project, etc. A collection may allow forretrieval of listings at any time.

FIG. 8B illustrates a graphical user interface 822 for a personalizedcollection utility that may be used in implementations of certainembodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 8B shows a screenshot, whichmay be a partial screenshot, of an interface that may be displayed via amobile application or any suitable end-user interface 105 in variousembodiments. In some embodiments, a webpage could implement a same orsimilar interface, for example. The personalized collection utility mayprovide one or more ways in which a user may organize the user'sbusiness relationship information. The personalized collection utilitymay automatically manage, update, and maintain relationship informationin order to make the user's life a lot easier. Certain embodiments allowsaving of listings information into one or more collections 824, andcertain embodiments may automatically organize a user's listings intocollections 824. By saving of listing information for later use, a usermay readily retrieve listing information for businesses of interest.

In the example depicted, options or various collections 824 arepresented, including a food collection option 826, a home collectionoption 828, a car collection option 830, and a shopping collectionoption 832. The options may be user-selectable options that enable auser to navigate to business information associated with each collection824. A collection 824 may allow for retrieval of listings and/or otherbusiness-specific information at any time. In some embodiments, certaincollection options could be presented to the user as a default, whichthe user may thereafter customize.

Referring again to FIG. 4, the onboarding phase of personalized businessinformation orchestration may include a collection creation stage, asindicated by block 408. In some embodiments, a default set ofcollections could be presented to the user. In some embodiments,collection creation could include correlating responses, which werereceived from the user per the question flow, to interestcategories/collections, as indicated by block 410. The most appropriateset of collections determined based on the responses may be suggested tothe user, or the application could simply be configured to include theset of collections, and the user may thereafter customize thecollections in any suitable manner.

As indicated by block 412, options for customization of collections maybe presented to the user. And, as indicated by block 414, thecollections may be populated with business information. Certainembodiments may provide the option for a user to create a customcollection. For example, a user could create a custom collection for akitchen remodeling project. Providers that are helping, and/or couldpotentially help, the user with the project could be associated with thecollection. Features could also be provided to the user to allow theuser to make and retain notes related to the project, such as notes onthe providers, indicia of whether the user likes particular providers ornot, which providers have been contacted, information obtained fromproviders, which providers have been selected, etc.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method 500 ofcertain aspects of a personalized business information orchestration, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Accordingto certain embodiments, certain aspects of the method 500 may beimplemented in addition to or in alternative to certain aspects of themethod 400. As indicated by block 502, indicia of user interests may begathered. The personalized collection utility may include variousfeatures for identifying potential indicia of user interests.

In some embodiments, as indicated by block 504, one or more questionsmay be presented to the user to gauge a user's interests. This maycorrespond to block 406 of the method 400. Accordingly, an automatedworkflow may include a series of questions presented to the user, theanswers to which, as provided by user selections, may indicate userinterests.

Some embodiments may provide for porting and categorization ofpreviously identified businesses of interest to the user from auser-created repository of information on businesses of interest, asindicated by block 506. Some embodiments may provide for options foruser initiation of porting and categorizing; some embodiments mayperform the process automatically. The application implementing thepersonalized collection utility may be configured with a plug-in,module, API, and/or otherwise to gather information from the end-userdevice and/or relate that information to the businesses of potentialinterest to the user.

In some embodiments, the personalized collection utility may includefeatures for automatically identifying potential businesses of interestto a specific user based at least in part on user history information,as indicated by block 508. A particular user could have a history and/orprofile associated with using search features facilitated by thebusiness information handling system 102, for example, via a clientapplication, a webpage, a mobile application, and/or the like. Forexample, businesses of potential interest may be identified from webbrowsing history information retained on the user computing device. Notonly may businesses associated with the history and/or profile beidentified, but also attendant business-specific information may beidentified for population of collections. Some embodiments may providefor options for user initiation of gathering indicia from user historyinformation; some embodiments may perform the process automatically.

In some embodiments, the personalized collection utility may includefeatures for automatically identifying potential businesses of interestto a specific user based at least in part on business contacts of theuser, as indicated by block 510. Some embodiments may provide foroptions for user initiation of gathering indicia based on businesscontacts; some embodiments may perform the process automatically. Forexample, business contacts retained on the user computing device (suchas business contacts in an address book, a phone book, etc.) may beharvested.

Once one or more business contacts are identified based on harvesting ofthe user computer device and/or account, the backend system 102 maysearch for business information based on the identified businesscontact, supplying the application with pertinent updated information.In various embodiments, if the backend system 102 cannot confirm theidentified business contact, the contact may be discarded or indicatedas a potential business of interest needing clarification from the user.And more generally, in various embodiments, various indicia of interestmay be captured, searched, correlated to logged business information,verified, updated, and/or used to gather additional relatedbusiness-specific information by the application and/or the backendsystem 102.

In some embodiments, the personalized collection utility may includefeatures for automatically identifying potential businesses of interestto a specific user based at least in part on user interactions withbusinesses, as indicated by block 512. Some embodiments may provide foroptions for user initiation of gathering indicia based on userinteractions with businesses; some embodiments may perform the processautomatically. Some embodiments may identify businesses of potentialinterest based on applications installed on the user computing device,such as mobile applications that are associated with particularbusinesses and/or business types. Some embodiments may identifybusinesses of potential interest based on phone call and/or messaginghistory information retained on the user computing device and/oravailable from other data sources. Some embodiments may identifybusinesses of potential interest based on email contact with businessesand/or business representatives. Some embodiments may identifybusinesses of potential interest based on calendar items related toappointments with businesses (such as hair appointments, nailappointments, dental appointments, etc.).

Some embodiments may identify businesses of potential interest based onuser indications of preference (such as positive rating business, anindication of liking the business, friending or otherwise linking to abusiness, sharing business information with others, etc.) that the userhas made via webpages and/or social media. Such indications ofpreference may be garnered from information associated with applicationon the user's computing device and/or via other data sources 110. Thepersonalized collection utility may include features for automaticallyidentifying potential businesses of interest to a specific user based atleast in part on one or more other accounts of the user. The user'sorchestration account could be linked (e.g., via API) to one or moreother accounts of the user, including an account associated with onlinesocial/business networking services (which may includemicroblogging/short messaging services), an email account, and/or anyother suitable data source 110. In some cases, the user may be promptedto login to the user's other account(s) to allow for the harvesting. Insome cases, previously provided authentication information stored by thesystem 102 may be used so that logging in is not necessary to enable theharvest. Businesses of interest could be identified byapproval/disapproval indicators, which may be in form of likes,dislikes, thumbs-up, thumbs-down, star-scale ratings, number-scaleratings, fan indications, affinity group association, messages tobusinesses, and/or the like. The approval/disapproval indicators couldbe those associated with the user's profile and/or profiles offriends/associates/connections of the user.

In some embodiments, the gathering of indicia of interest may supportthe generation of user profiles, and could be used to refine userprofiles. In some embodiments, user profiles may be transferred from theapplication to the information handling system 102. In otherembodiments, only information related to the profiles may be transferredto the backend system 102. The information handling system 102 may haveprofiles for businesses. As indicated by block 514, one or morecollections may be created based on the gathered indicia of interest. Asindicated by block 516, the gathered indicia of interest may becorrelated to interest categories/collections. In some embodiments, thebusiness profiles may include or be linked to one or more taxonomiesthat map particular businesses/business categories, particularinterests/interest categories and/or particular questions forpresentation to users.

As indicated by block 518, options for customization of collections maybe presented to the user. As indicated by block 520, one or morecollections-specific that questions may be presented to the user foridentification of collection-specific businesses of interest.User-selectable options corresponding to interest categories may bepresented for user selection. For example, options corresponding tocategories such as my kids, my home, my pets, etc. may be presented tothe user. The user-selectable options may allow the user to drill downinto particular interest categories. For example, once a user taps intoan individual collection, one or more questions may be presented to theuser relating to the individual collection to help user set up thatcollection. Referring to FIG. 8B, for example, say a user taps theindividual collection 828 relates to the user's category of “my home.”The user may be presented with a collection-specific graphical userinterface 842, as illustrated by FIG. 8C, which shows a screenshot,which may be a partial screenshot for a personalized collection utilitythat may be used in implementations of certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

As indicated by 844, one potential question presented the user could be“Who's your plumber?” The question could be presented with options 848for a number of actual plumber names, plumber business names, and/orother plumber listings for the user to select. The options 848 presentedwith the question could be identified based on gathered indicia ofbusinesses of interest to the user and/or options near the location ofthe user, such as the nearest three or so plumbers. Though not depicted,the nearby options could be indicated on a map presented to the userwith the interface 842. A text entry field 844 could allow the user toenter an indication of a plumber in response to the question. Along withsuch questions, a user-selectable option to skip 846 a given question ora series of questions may be presented. Referring again to FIG. 5, oneor more businesses of interest may be associated with one or morecollections based on user responses to the collection specificquestions, as indicated by block 522.

In some embodiments, information harvested regarding a user may be usedto infer potential businesses of interest to the user, as indicated byblock 524. And such potential businesses of interest may be suggested tothe user, as indicated by block 526. For example, if interest dataindicates that a user has a pet, local businesses related to pets and/orthat otherwise would only be of interest if one has a pet could beidentified/suggested as potential businesses of interest. Similarly, ifinterest data indicates that a user is a parent, businesses that wouldonly be of interest to parents could be identified/suggested aspotential businesses of interest. As indicated by block 528, businessinformation corresponding to businesses/potential businesses of interestmay be organized into collections as discussed herein.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method 600 ofcertain aspects of a personalized business information orchestration, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Accordingto certain embodiments, the method 600 may begin as indicated by block602. Teachings of the present disclosure may be implemented in a varietyof configurations. As such, the order of the steps comprising the method600 may be shuffled in any suitable manner and may depend on theimplementation chosen. Moreover, while the following steps may beseparated for the sake of description, it should be understood thatcertain steps may be performed simultaneously or substantiallysimultaneously.

As indicated by block 602, an end-user may identify/confirm businessinformation of interest. In some cases, a user may be performing asearch with the application. FIG. 8D illustrates a graphical userinterface 862 for searching for business information, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 8D shows ascreenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of an interface that maybe displayed via a mobile application. In some embodiments, a webpagecould implement a same or similar interface. Responsive to a searchrequest by an end user, a set of businesses may be selected by thesystem 102 as corresponding to the user's search criteria, includinglocation. The set of businesses may be compiled and presented to theconsumer with as search results 864. Along with each search result 864,a user-selectable option 866 may be presented to the user so that uponuser selection, e.g., a single click, a particular business may be addedto the user's collections. Thus, in the example case, a specificbusiness may already be identified by the system 102 prior to beingpresented to the user. In some cases, however, a specific business mayneed to be confirmed by the user, for example, when a suggestion hasbeen identified based on gathered indicia of interest, and a potentialbusiness of interest is presented to the user.

As indicated by block 604, in some embodiments, the business informationof interest may be correlated to a specific business if necessary. Forexample, when the business information of interest is not specific, isambiguous, and/or corresponds to multiple businesses, a specificbusiness may need to be identified based on the business information.The business information of interest could include one or more ofgathered indicia of interest, responses to questions presented to theuser, and/or interest categories.

As indicated by block 606, business-specific information may beassociated with a particular collection. In some embodiments, theassociation may be according to a collection specified by the user, asindicated by block 608. In some embodiments, a user-selectable optionmay be presented to the user upon identification of a business ofinterest. For example, after a user selects an option such as option866, a prompt could be presented to the user to indicate to which of theuser's collections the particular business should be linked. In someembodiments, a user-selectable option could be presented for theparticular business to be automatically correlated and linked with theappropriate collection. In some embodiments, the automatic correlationand linking of the particular business with the appropriate collectioncould be by default such that the user need not be prompted.Accordingly, as indicated by block 610, the business identifier or otherbusiness-specific information may be automatically correlated with agermane collection. In some embodiments, the user may be notified of theautomatic correlation, and, as indicated by block 612, a user-selectableoption may be presented to customize the association with the particularcollection, in some embodiments.

As indicated by block 614, additional information pertinent to thespecific business may be linked to the collection for presentation tothe user. FIG. 8E illustrates a graphical user interface 882 forspecific business information saved or savable in a collection, inaccordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 8Eshows a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of an interfacethat may be displayed via a mobile application. Business listinginformation 886 may be linked to the collection. The business listinginformation 886 may include address information, directions, ratingsinformation, map information, business details, user reviews, coupons,etc. An indicator 884 may indicate that the specific business is savedin a collection or could be a selectable option to add the listinginformation for the specific business in a collection.

Referring again to FIG. 6, as indicated by block 616, business-specificinformation associated with a collection may be updated based oninformation from the information handling system 102. Business listinginformation associated with a collection may be automatically updated bythe information handling system 102 such that, when listing informationis retrieved from a collection, the listing information may be updatedinformation. Thus, a collection allows for the maintenance of listinginformation of interest to provide a user with the most up-to-datelisting information for the businesses that matter to the user. And,thus, if a provider associated with a collection has moved or changedphone numbers, the user will not be left with obsolete information (asthe user would otherwise be if such information was recorded into anaddress book) because the change may be captured so that the collectionwould be automatically updated with the new information.

FIG. 7 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofpersonalized business information orchestration 700, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. Various embodiments mayemploy any one or combination of various methods of correlation ofinterest data, interest categories, and businesses.

Interest data may include any suitable information that may be capturedvia an interest data capture process 702 to indicate, infer, and/ordetermine interest categories and/or businesses of interest. Asdiscussed herein, certain embodiments may use a client application 351installed on the user's computing device to facilitate data capture. Insome embodiments, the client application 351 may qualify captured datain part or in whole and/or send captured data to the informationhandling system 102 for qualification.

Having interest data, the information handling system 102 and/or theapplication 351 may implement a qualification process. Some embodimentsmay qualify an interest according to a graduated scale. Any suitablescale may be used in various embodiments. In some embodiments, a scalecould entail a categorization scheme 714, with any suitable categories.In some embodiments, a taxonomy scoring system 712 could be correlatedto the category scheme, such that certain scores may correspond tocertain categories so that, based on a given set of interest data, ahigh correlation score to a particular category may indicate thecategory is more appropriate. Some embodiments may score with anumerical expression. Accordingly, a taxonomy score may indicate whichcategories are more/most likely to be appropriate for a user, thusproviding a quantitative estimate of a user interest. By way of examplewithout limitation, a scale could include a range of scores from 0 to100, or from 0 to 1,000, with the high end of the scale indicatinggreater probability. Some embodiments may use methods of statisticalanalysis to derive a score. Various embodiments may determine a scorebased on any one or more suitable quantifiers.

Some embodiments may employ a decision tree, checklist, workflow, and/orthe like to capture various aspects of interest data and assess thoseaspects to infer interest qualification. Such a decision tree,checklist, and/or workflow may incorporate any one or combination of thedepicted aspects and/or similar aspects in any desired order, accordingto various embodiments. Interest data can be consolidated and processedto yield a taxonomy score 712.

Certain embodiments may provide for keyword processing 704 of gatheredinterest data, such as any data related to indicia of interest discussedherein. In some embodiments, an impression engine, which could beincluded in the engine(s) 122, could perform keyword identification. Thecall impression engine could be configured to recognize evidence ofinterest potential. Taxonomy scores 712 may be based at least in part onkeywords gathered.

The impression engine may identify keywords as distinctive markings andcould compile the keywords for the purposes of characterization from theperspective of interest potential. The keywords could be correlated withkeyword criteria 708 to characterize the data from the perspective ofinterest potential and to generate correlation results 708 that can betaken into account with scoring 712. In some embodiments, thecorrelation results 708 can be taken into account in conjunction withother indicia 710, which could correspond to any one or combination ofthe other indicia of interest potential discussed herein such aslocation information and/or the like. As discussed herein, variousembodiments may employ any one or combination of methods of capturinglocation information, including but not limited to, gathering locationinformation via any one or combination of the user's computing device,such as the device GPS capabilities, access points, third parties,receiving explicit location information with one or more searchrequests, inferring location information from one or more searchrequests, and/or the like.

FIG. 9 is a screenshot illustrating an example end-user interface 900,in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 9shows a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of the end-userinterface 900 that may be displayed via any suitable end-user interface105, which may correspond to a webpage or mobile application in variousembodiments. The end-user interface 900 may correspond to an end-user'spersonal account that would be accessible to the end-user after loginand authentication.

The end-user interface 900 may present user identification information902 that may retain in the one or more repositories 128. In variousembodiments, user identification information 902 may include, forexample, the user's name/alias, one or more images associated with theuser (such as, images uploaded by the user, more or less generic imagesselected by default, and/or images pulled from other data sources, suchas the user's linked online social media account(s)), and/or the like.

The end-user interface 900 may be presented responsive to a request foruser's personalized business information transmitted from the end-usercomputing device, such as a login request. The system 102 may access theuser's personalized business information retained in the one or morerepositories 128. In some embodiments, certain personalized businessinformation may be retained locally on the end-user computing, and thelocal information may be synchronized/updated based on the informationretained in the one or more repositories 128. In other embodiments,personalized business information may be freshly transmitted, in wholeor in part, from the system 102 to the end-user computing device.

The user's personalized business information may be provided inaccording with the user's curation information. The personalizedcuration information may include geo-relevant graph information specificto the user. The geo-relevant graph information may include collectioninformation that specifies one or more collection characteristics. Thecollection characteristics may include any suitable parameters definingaspects of the user's collections, including one or more of collectionthemes, associated business categories, information about location(s) ofinterest to the user, businesses windows mapped to the collections,arrangement information specifying a visual arrangement of collectionsto presented to user, custom content added and/or modified by the userand/or other users (such as notes, images, graphical customizations,editorial customizations, etc.), privacy attributes, and/or any othercollection characteristics described herein.

The geo-relevant graph information may include window information thatspecifies one or more window characteristics. The window characteristicsmay include any suitable parameters defining aspects of the windowedinformation provided to the user, including one or more of specificbusinesses mapped to a given window, geo-specific criteria for thespecific businesses, custom content added and/or modified by the userand/or other users (such as notes, images, graphical customizations,editorial customizations, etc.), privacy attributes, and/or any otherwindow characteristics described herein.

In some embodiments, the system 102 may access a set of businessinformation retained in the one or more repositories 128, the set ofbusiness information being related to businesses specified by thegeo-relevant graph information. The system 102 may window the set ofbusiness information to at least partially form one or more windowedsets of information. The windowing could include one or more ofidentifying selecting, processing, compiling, arranging, and/orproviding any pertinent business information for a particular businessof interest described herein.

For example, in various embodiments, the windowing could include usinggeo-specific criteria to furnish information for a particular businesslocation (e.g., one out of multiple location options, say, for abusiness chain or other business that has multiple sites), a particularprovider and/or contact (e.g., one out of multiple provider and/orcontact options for a particular business), and/or the like. Thewindowing could include selecting only particular information items thatpertain to a particular window. In some cases, a user could modify thetype of content desired for a particular business, and particularinformation items could be furnished accordingly. The windowing couldinclude checking the set of business information for updated information(such as changes in contact information, location information, reviewinformation, and/or any other pertinent information).

In some embodiments, the windowing could include gatheringuser-generated content pertaining to a particular business, discussedfurther herein. In some cases, user-generated content was previouslyprovided by the end user and retained by the system 102. In some cases,user-generated content was previously gathered, pushed, and/or pulledfrom data sources 110 and retained by the system 102. In some cases,user-generated content is actively gathered, pushed, and/or pulled fromdata sources 110 on an as-needed basis to freshly provide the contentwith the windowed set of information and/or to update/check contentpreviously retained and that is to be provided with the windowed set ofinformation.

In some embodiments, windowed sets of information may be formed andretained by the system 102 in anticipation of a request to provide theinformation to the user. In some embodiments, windowed sets ofinformation may be formed responsive to a request. In some embodiments,previously formed windowed sets of information may be updated responsiveto a request. In various embodiments, window information components maybe compiled prior to transmission to an end-user computing device and/ormay be transmitted separately.

In the example depicted, the end-user interface 900 may present theuser's current collections 904, the curation of which is facilitated bythe platform. The user's current collections 904 may be indicated in anysuitable manner, including with images, color coding, alphanumericindicia, and/or the like. A sorting feature 918 may allow forpresentation of one or more user-selectable options to sort thecollections 904 in any suitable manner, including according to activity(e.g., activity by the user, a collaborator, a business, businessinformation updating via the system 102, review activity, activity byother users registered with the orchestration service and/or other usersinteracting about the particular businesses via online social mediaservices, and/or the like), latest updates, latest additions ofbusinesses to a collection, alphabetically according to collection name,number of businesses associated with a collection,collaborative/non-collaborative characteristic, public/non-publiccharacteristic, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, like the example depicted, numbers of businessesassociated with each collection may be indicated. For example,twenty-one businesses are indicated as associated with the collaborativecollection directed to the Santa Monica Restaurant theme, in thecollaborator section 908 and in the collection section 904 withindication of the Santa Monica Restaurant collection 914. And,generally, with presentation of collections 904, whether collaborativeor not, numbers of businesses associated with each collection 904 may beindicated as in the depicted example (e.g., the Car collection istextually indicated as having seven associated businesses) or in anyother suitable manner.

One or more user-selectable options may be available to the user todesignate whether a collection is public or private. A privatedesignation could be a default in some embodiments. If a collection isdesignated as public, the collection could be viewable/searchable toother users. In some embodiments, collections may be graphicallydistinguished in any suitable manner based on being public or private.The example depicted portrays illustrative graphical private collectionindicators 924 and public collection indicators 926. A collection couldalso be designate as viewable/searchable to a select group of otherusers. For example, the select group could include other usersindividually selected by the user, other users who are alsofriends/associates via an online social/business networking service,other users who associated with a certain affinity group, and/or thelike.

The end-user interface 900 may include one or more social panes 906. Theone or more social panes 906 could include a collaborator section 908for embodiments that provide the option for the user to allow one ormore collaborators to have access to one or more collections. Forexample, a husband and wife may both curate a Kitchen Remodelcollection, like the depicted example, in view of their kitchenremodeling project. As another example, a user may collaborate withanother in planning a trip, say a tour of the West Coast, visitingwhiskey bars along the way. To that end, the tourists could curate aWest Coast Whiskey Bars collection, like the depicted example.Accordingly, the collaborator section 908 could include informationabout one or more collaborators that have access to one or morecollections of the user.

The end-user interface 900 may be configured to indicate, not onlycollaborators, but also the particular collaborative collections. In theexample depicted, Angela M. is indicated in the collaborator section 908as a collaborator with Ricardo on a kitchen remodel collection and aSanta Monica Restaurant collection. Collaborative collections may begraphically distinguished from non-collaborative collections. Forexample, a graphical indicator 916 corresponding to the Santa MonicaRestaurant collection may indicate the collaborative nature of thecollection. However, collections may be distinguished in any suitablemanner, including with images, color coding, alphanumeric indicia,and/or the like.

One or more user-selectable options may be provided to navigate to acollaborative or non-collaborative collection. For example, the user maytap or click into one of the collaborative collections 904 that isdesignated as being collaborative. FIG. 10 shows a screenshot, which maybe a partial screenshot, of the end-user interface 900-1 that may bedisplayed after navigating/drilling down into a collaborative collection1002. The example depicts a Kitchen Remodel collection 1002 relating toa remodeling project. The collection 1002 may include one or morecurated information windows 1008, each corresponding to a business.

Each information window 1008 may present any suitable listinginformation for the respective business. In some embodiments, thelisting information may be retained on the backend system 102 andprovided to the user portal on demand. In some embodiments, the listinginformation may be retained on the user device 105 and updated by thebackend system 102 on any suitable basis, including, for example, basedon one or more of user login, user access of particular collections,launch of the application, a batch process, a real-time update when newinformation is available, and/or the like. In some embodiments, aninformation window 1008 may include advertisements from a business,images associated with a business, options for video/audio from abusiness for presentation to the user, a video/audio/textual chat optionto connect with a business, a select-to-call option to connect with abusiness, and/or the like. An information window 1008 may include adirections feature 1012 configured to provide directions and/or mappinginformation consequent to user selection. The information may beprovided in conjunction with a mapping application, resident on thedevice 105 and/or network-facilitated.

An information window 1008 may include a notes feature 1010 configuredto allow the user to make and retain notes related to the provider, suchas notes on the providers, indicia of whether the user likes particularproviders or not, which providers have been contacted, informationobtained from providers, which providers have been selected, etc. Anysuitable content could be added in accordance with various embodiments.A user could add photos, for example. Say, a user has a photo of adesired kitchen design that the user wants to mimic for the user'skitchen remodel; the user could upload the photo to a kitchen remodelcollection. In some embodiments, a user could import a photo fromanother account of the user, say a photo-sharing/repository account, anonline networking services account, etc. The user could link to theother account as described herein, and a data collection utilityprovided by the orchestration account may be configured to port thephoto(s) to the user's collection/window.

As another example, photos of one or more of a service need, a completedservice, a service in progress, receipt(s), warranties, invoices, and/orthe like could be uploaded to the orchestration account. Each photo maybe time-stamped by the system 102 and retained in the one or morerepositories 128 for later access and retrieval by the user.Accordingly, the platform may provide a way to have a filing systemdirected to services—a record system for the user. As described herein,a vendor could be a collaborator or could be otherwise enabled to viewcertain collections/windows of the user. In this manner, certainembodiments may provide an additional means to facilitate ongoingengagement with local vendors.

An information window 1008 may include a share feature 1014 configuredto share an information window 1008 with others in one or more ways. Forexample, the share feature 1014 may include one or more user-selectableoptions to propagate the information window 1008 to another collectionin some embodiments. Say, for example, that the user decides aparticular business is appropriate for another collection of the user,the user can add the corresponding information window 1008 to the othercollection via the share feature 1014.

As another example, the share feature 1014 may include one or moreuser-selectable options to share the information window 1008 withanother user of the online orchestration service in some embodiments. Insome embodiments, entire collections can be shared. The end-userinterface 900-1 may include one or more collection share options 1020configured to allow sharing of collection information in any suitablemanner.

A window and/or collection could be shared with another user of theonline orchestration service, for example, via a notification to anaccount associated with another user. Responsive to a share selection,the platform may send a notification to an account associated withanother user. The notification could be provided via the other user'saccount. By way of example, the end-user interface 900-1 may includenotification features 1016 that allow a user to be apprised of newnotifications received as directed to the user, and allow the user toview the notification(s) upon user selection of one or more notificationoptions. Thus, in the example depicted, the user, Ricardo, could receivea notification 1016, which could be a result of another user sharing aninformation window 1008 and/or collection 1002.

In various embodiments, the shared information could be at leastpartially viewed and/or incorporated into user's account with viewing ofthe notification 1016, with viewing a message corresponding to thenotification 1016, and/or with selection of one or more user-selectableoptions provided consequent to the notification 1016. The presentationof shared information could be by way of summary information thatsummarizes and/or characterizes information from/relating to the sharedcollection. For example, summary information about the sharedinformation could be generated and included for viewing with viewing ofthe notification 1016 and/or a message corresponding to the notification1016. In some embodiments, the shared information could be viewed, atleast in part, with selection of one or more user-selectable optionsprovided with the notification 1016 and/or a message corresponding tothe notification 1016. In some embodiments, one or more user-selectableoptions may be provided for incorporating the correspondingcollection/information window into a collection of the user.

The share feature 1014, 1020 may include one or more user-selectableoptions to share the information window 1008 and/or collection 1002 withothers via any suitable means of notification. For example, textmessages, voice notifications, push notifications, e-mails,social/business networking services account postings/messages, alertswith the application, and/or other any suitable means could be employedto allow for the presentation of collection/window information. In someembodiments, the user's orchestration account could be linked (e.g., viaAPI) to one or more other accounts of the user, say, an email account,for example. The end-user interface 900-1 may include linked accountfeatures 1018 that may allow for notifications of any communicationsreceived via the other account and/or may provide one or moreuser-selectable options to launch and/or otherwise access the otheraccount.

The user's orchestration account could link to any suitable account ofthe user, including an account associated with online social/businessnetworking services and/or any other suitable data source 100. And,thus, a posting about the business could be made in association with theuser's account and/or another's account responsive to the user selectionof the share option. In some cases, the user may be prompted to login tothe user's social/business networking media account to make the posting.In some cases, previously provided authentication information stored bythe system 102 may be used so that logging in is not necessary to makethe posting in the other account. The share feature 1014, 1020 may beconfigured to facilitate the setup of the information sharing, whetherit be a networking services account posting, an email, a text message,or otherwise, and present the communication setup for previewing anddispatch by the user. A link or other user-selectable option could beshared to allow for the viewing/incorporation of further collectioninformation. In some embodiments, users who are not yet registered withthe service could be invited to do so in conjunction with a collectionsharing communication.

In some embodiments, a snapshot of a collection or a single window couldbe shared. The snapshot could take any suitable form, include an image,a text file, and/or the like. A share feature 1014, 1020 could presentan option to send a snapshot, and, consequent to user selection, couldconvert a collection/window to a snapshot form and proceed withcommunication in a manner discussed above.

FIG. 11 shows an example 1100 of sharing collection information viasocial/business networking services account postings, in accordance withcertain embodiments. Say, for example, the user, Ricardo, is asked aboutwho did the work on his kitchen remodel. The user can share informationabout his Kitchen Remodel Collection via a posting 1102 to his socialmedia account. The posting 1102 may include summary information 1104about the collection. The posting 1102 may include one or moreuser-selectable options to view more collection information, to viewcollection information via the online orchestration service, tologin/register with the orchestration service, and/or the like.

For example, one or more user-selectable options may be provided tonavigate to a public profile accessible via the orchestration platform.FIG. 12 shows a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of apublic profile 1000-2 that may be displayed after selection of a linkmade available with posting 1102. The example depicts Ricardo's publicKitchen Remodel Collection 1102-1. The collection 1102-1, having beendesignated as public, could be a landing page viewable, for example, asa result of a user selection of a link from a posting 1102.

In some embodiments, one or more user-selectable options may bepresented depending on the viewer. For example, login/registrationoptions 1202 may be provided. For a registered user, a follow option1206 may be provided to enable the user to follow Ricardo's collection.After the user opts to follow the collection, update notifications maybe sent to the user based on subsequent actions taken with respect tothe collection, such as collection curation, annotation, augmentation,and/or any modification of interest taken.

For a registered user, a copy option 1208 may be provided to enable theuser to copy the collection 1102-1 to the user's set of collections.Once copied over to the user's collection set, the copy could become theuser's collection. The user may then use and modify the collection asdesired.

Referring again to FIG. 11, in some embodiments, user feedback from thesocial/business networking services may be captured by the system 102.For example, information about user approval/disapproval indicators1106, which may be in form of likes, dislikes, thumbs-up, thumbs-down,star-scale ratings, number-scale ratings, and/or the like, could becaptured. Captured user feedback could be processed and reflected backthrough the orchestration services platform. Thus, a certain collectionand/or business may have accumulated user feedback from other forms andsuch feedback could be indicated via the user's collection(s) and/orinformation window(s) in any suitable manner.

Referring again to FIG. 10, the interface 900-1 may indicate userfeedback data in any suitable manner. For example, an information window1008 may include one or more user review indicators 1022. Similar reviewfeatures could be provided on a collection basis, in addition oralternative to an individual business basis. The one or more user reviewindicators 1022 may include composite and/or segregated reviewinformation garnered from reviews via the listing service of theplatform, online social/business networking service(s), theorchestration service, and/or any suitable data source(s) 100. Invarious embodiments, the system 102 may actively monitor, gather, push,and/or pull user feedback data from such sources in any suitable way. Asa particular example of gathering user feedback on businesses, in manycases, businesses associated with the system 102 may have individualbusiness pages setup for public viewing/interfacing via a one or moreonline social/business networking services and/or other data sources100. In some cases, the system 102 may facilitate setup of such businesspages for the businesses. User feedback data from such sources may bemonitored, gathered, and/or pulled by the system 102.

When presented via the interface 900-1, the source of composite reviewinformation could be distinguished. For example, review informationcoming from the listing service could be so indicated, reviewinformation coming from social media could be so indicated, etc.Moreover, the types of review information could be differentiated. Forexample, say user feedback from one social media site includes feedbackin the form of “like” indications; an information window 1008 couldindicate the number of likes that the business received via that socialmedia site over any time period(s) of interest (e.g., the past year, sixmonths, month, week, day, hour, etc.). Thus, certain embodiments mayprovide for temporal windowing may allow a user to see businessestrending in the user's neighborhood, city, and/or other local area.

The example depicts the collection 1002 configured as having onecollaborator, as indicated by 1004. A collaborator could be another userof the online orchestration service in some embodiments. In someembodiments, users who are not yet registered with the service could beinvited to do so in conjunction with an invitation from a registereduser to be a collaborator. One or more user-selectable options 1006could be presented via the end-user interface 900-1 to allow the user toenlist collaborators, who may be registered users or who may not beregistered. Responsive to enlist option selection, the platform may senda notification to an account associated with an invitee. In someembodiments, where an invitee is a registered user, the notificationcould be provided via the invitee's accounts. The end-user interface900-1 may include notification features 1016 that allow a user to beapprised of new notifications received as directed to the user, andallow the user to view the notification(s) upon user selection of one ormore notification options. Thus, in the example depicted, the user,Ricardo, could receive an invitation via a notification 1016. However,any suitable means of notification may be employed. For example, text,voice, e-mail, alerts with the application, and/or the like could besent. In some embodiments, the user's orchestration account could belinked (e.g., via API) to another account of the user, say, an emailaccount, for example. The end-user interface 900-1 may include linkedaccount features 1018 that may allow for notifications of anycommunications (which communications are not limited to collaborationand registration invitations) received via the other account and/or mayprovide one or more user-selectable options to launch and/or otherwiseaccess the other account. A notification could include a link or othercommunication reference referring back to the platform, prompting theinvitee to respond. For example, the notification could provide a linkfor users to register and/or login to the platform to respond. In someembodiments, the invitee may respond via the same medium in which thenotification was sent (e.g., text, voice, e-mail, etc.), and the system102 may process the response, extracting requested information.

Some embodiments may allow the user to determine a level of accessgranted to a collaborator. In some embodiments, the access could beread-only access. Thus, the user could specify that one or more otherusers may only be allowed to view a certain collection. In addition toviewing access, the level of access could include write access. Acollaborator could have editing access and/or access to add content suchthat the collaborator may add notes, photos, preference indicia, ratingsindicia, additional business selections/information, etc. Accordingly,any changes that one collaborator makes to a collection may be reflectedin the collection as viewed by one or more other collaborators.

A collaborator could be a service provider associated with one or moreof the businesses designated in the collaborative collection. Forexample, a user might want a general contractor to be a collaborator ona project, which general contractor could be associated with adesignated business or could be independent. Accordingly, suchcollaborators could help coordinate a project or otherwise provide inputon a project. And, more generally beyond the example of a generalcontractor, any desired business provider could be a collaborator and beenabled to provide input.

Referring again to FIG. 9, the one or more social panes 906 couldinclude a friends section 918 for embodiments that provide forinteraction between the orchestration service and one or more onlinesocial media services (e.g., via API). A user may have the option toassociate the user's orchestration account with one or moresocial/business networking services. One or more user-selectable optionsand workflows may be provided for the user to provide necessaryauthentication information for the user's other networking account(s)and to associate the other networking account(s). In some embodiments,the system 102 may retain the authentication information and link to thedata sources 110 to coordinate interface with the other accounts, gatherinformation from the user's particular account(s), and provideinformation for presentation via the end-user interface 900. Consequentto such association, the friends section 918 could identify friendsand/or others that are linked to the user via social/business networkingservices. Additional information, such as whether certainfriends/associates are logged in to the orchestration service and/orsocial/business networking services, could be presented via the friendssection 918. Those friends/associates that have orchestration accountscould be distinguished from those that do not in any suitable manner.

In some embodiments, one or more user-selectable options may be providedto navigate to another user's account. The friend indicators in thefriends section 918 could in include such options, for example. Inaddition or alternative, a search interface could be provided to searchfor other user accounts. FIG. 13 shows a screenshot, which may be apartial screenshot, of the end-user interface 900-3 that may bedisplayed after navigating to another user's public collections, forexample, by selecting an option 1302 from the social panes 906. Theexample depicts public collections 1304 of another user, Jason.Accordingly, only those collections 1304 which have been designated aspublic would be viewable.

Referring again to FIG. 9, the one or more social panes 906 couldinclude a collection following section 920. The collection followingsection 920 may identify public collections that the user has selectedto follow. Additional information, such as update information or anyother suitable information pertaining to the followed publiccollections, could be indicated, as well. Update notifications could begeneral or could be specific, indicating, for example, that businessinformation has changed (new telephone number, new reviews, new ratings,a change in ratings of the business by third party organizations, achange in business profiles/webpages, etc.)

The user may be presented with options to search 922 for publiccollections of others. The search could be geo-aware such that publiccollections associated with the user's general vicinity could besearched. The option to search another vicinity of interest to the usercould also be provided so that the user may indicate a differentvicinity of interest. In some embodiments, options to input a trip, bystarting point, endpoint, route, and/or otherwise may be provided sothat the user could search for collections relevant to the trip. Forexample, a user may be interested in a tour of California wineries andmay so indicate in order to search for collections pertaining thereto.Public collections could be selected for presentation to the user basedat least in part on one or more of business location(s) in relation to alocation of interest to the user, relevance of a business to anidentified interest of the user, how many users are following thecollections, positively trending collections with respect to aparticular time period(s) (which trending could be based on collectionadditions, collection followings, ratings, and/or any suitable basis),activity in the collections, ratings of the collections, and/or thelike. Certain public collections could be selected for presentation tothe user as suggestions, though the user may not have actively searchedfor the public collections. Having found a public collection ofinterest, one or more user-selectable options may be presented to theuser to peruse, share, incorporate into the user's collection(s)(selectively or in whole), and/or follow the collection.

FIG. 14 shows a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of asearch interface 1400 that may be displayed via a mobile application,webpage, or any suitable end-user interface 105, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. A search feature 1402 maybe provided with one or more of the end-user interfaces 800, 900, and/orthe like. The search feature 1402 could be made available to registeredusers, non-registered users, and/or non-logged-in users. The searchfeature 1402 may include a query field and a location field, and may bethe same or similar to search interface features described herein.Responsive to a search request by an end user, a set of businesses maybe selected by the system 102 as corresponding to the user's searchcriteria, including location. The set of businesses may be compiled andpresented as search results 1404.

In some embodiments, interest data, user preferences, curationcharacteristics, collection characteristics, demographiccharacteristics, business characteristics, profiletypes/characteristics, and/or the like that correspond to particular endusers could be characterized by the system 102 and retained asuser-specific profiles associated with various criteria (e.g., keywordcriteria, taxonomy criteria, categorization criteria, etc.) that allowfor correlation of multiple end users based on end-user characteristics.The system 102 could anonymize any of such information and could provideanonymous depictions of user preferences and profile types to helppersonalize the experience for a given end user and help find businessesthat other users like the given end user enjoyed. User-selectableoptions for user-specific profile types, criteria, and/or any suitablecharacterization of other users could be presented via the searchinterface 1400 to allow for searching. For example, a user could searchfor other users that have interest in pets, children, or any suitableinterest category, and be presented with anonymized search results forthe user to see what businesses are of interest to those other users. Auser could refine a search by demographic characteristics, locationcharacteristics, interest data, user preferences, curationcharacteristics, collection characteristics, business characteristics,profile types/characteristics, and/or the like. In some embodiments, thesystem 102 may automatically search on behalf of the user, without userselection, and present search results as suggestions to the user. Thesearch results could anonymously indicate any suitable characterizationof the other users.

In some embodiments, certain public collections could be selected forpresentation to the user with the search results 1404. In someembodiments, the collection could be selected as suggestions, though theuser may not have actively searched for the public collections. One ormore user-selectable options may be presented to the user to peruse,share, incorporate into the user's collection(s) (selectively or inwhole), and/or follow the collection.

In some embodiments, with respect to particular business listing in thesearch results 1404, an indicator 1406 may indicate whether a particularbusiness listing is in a collection by other users and may furtherindicate a number of users who have added the particular businesslisting to a collection. Such information indicated by the collectionaddition indicators 1406 may lend a measure of credibility andtrustworthiness to a business; an addition to one's collection indicatesa willingness/desire to engage with a business.

Some embodiments may provide a map view 1414 of search results. The mapview 1414 could indicate search results depicted in a vicinity of areference location 1416 that corresponds to the location of interest.Collection addition indicators 1418 could be positioned on the map view1414 to indication business locations corresponding to the searchresults. The collection addition indicators 1418 may each indicate anumber of users who have added a particular business listing to acollection. In some embodiments, the collection addition indicators 1418may correspond to a set of the most relevant search results, andrelatively less relevant search results could be indicated by differentcollection addition indicators 1420. The indicators 1418 and 1420 couldbe graphically distinguished in any suitable manner, including withimages, shape differentiation, color differentiation, alphanumericindicia, and/or the like. One or more of the indicators 1418 and 1420could correspond to user-selection options that allow a user to viewfurther details and/or adding businesses to collections consequent toselection of a particular indicator. In some embodiments, the map view1414 and/or a similar map interface may be provided to allow forinteractive searching and adjustment in order to find businesses ofinterest for addition to collections.

In some embodiments, one or more user-selectable options may be providedfor refining location criteria for the collection addition indicia. Forexample, a user may be able to indicate a range, such as a radius of Xmiles from specified location of interest. In some embodiments, a usercould indicate an area of interest with any suitable parameters, e.g.,including one or more counties, municipalities, zip codes, distancesfrom reference points, etc. In some embodiments, a user-selectable mapinterface may be presented, enabling user to define an area by selectingone or more points on the map interface. For example, predefined serviceareas, such as zip codes and/or the like, could be presented on the mapfor selection. The map interface could allow a user to define aperimeter of a service, e.g., by drawing on the map with a line drawingtool, cursor, finger/stylus contact with a touch interface, selection ofperimeter boundaries such as roads, rivers, etc. Hence, collectionaddition indicia may be location-specific and refined to any suitabledegree of granularity to provide enhanced relevance.

A user logged in to the orchestration platform could have a linkedsocial/business networking services account. And, in some embodiments,with respect to a particular business listing in the search results1404, an indicator 1408 may indicate whether a particular businesslisting has been added by others who are friends/associates/connectionsof the user via an online social/business networking service, otherusers who associated with a certain affinity group, and/or the like.Thus, certain embodiments may surface user-generated content from socialgraphs in order add a trust factor for consideration of particularbusinesses, if applicable. The network-specific addition indicators 1408may be differentiated from more general collection addition indicators1406 in some embodiments in order to add trustworthinessdifferentiation, as an addition of a business to personal collection bysocial media friends may be considered as an endorsement and may furtherallow reaching out to the others for further information if desired.

User-selectable options may be presented to the user with search resultsto allow a drill-down to more specific information for a particularbusiness. FIG. 15 shows a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot,of a search interface 1400-1 with business-specific information 1502that may be displayed responsive to user selection, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. With respect to aparticular business, the business-specific information 1502 may includeany one or combination of information items and/or features describedherein. A user-selectable option 1504 may be presented to the user sothat upon user selection, e.g., a single click, a particular businessmay be added to the user's collections. A collection addition indicator1506 may indicate whether a particular business listing is in acollection by other users and may further indicate a number of users whohave added the particular business listing to a collection. Anetwork-specific indicator 1508 may indicate whether a particularbusiness listing has been added by others who are friends/associates ofthe user via an online social/business networking service, other userswho associated with a certain affinity group, and/or the like. In someembodiments, the network-specific indicator 1508 may include images ofthe friends/associates scraped from the social/business networkingservice.

The business-specific information 1502 may include a friends/associatesreview window 1510 that surfaces review content by the user'sfriends/associates gathered from one or more online social/businessnetworking services. The system 102 may actively monitor, gather, push,and/or pull review content from one or more online social/businessnetworking services in any suitable way. In some embodiments, like theexample depicted, the review window 1510 may surface individual reviewcontent, that is, content from an individual friend/associate of theuser. The review content may include any one or combination of revieweridentification information, ratings, review comments, preferenceindicia, date information, and/or the like. The review content may begathered from business pages associated with the one or more onlinesocial/business networking services in some cases. In some embodiments,review content may be gathered from business websites, with thereviewers being correlated to the user as being related via the onlinesocial/business networking services.

FIG. 16 shows a screenshot, which may be a partial screenshot, of anend-user interface 1600 that may be displayed via a mobile application,webpage, or any suitable end-user interface 105, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. The end-user interface1600 may be similar to other interfaces described herein and may includeany one or combination of features of other interfaces described herein.In some embodiments, the end-user interface 1600 may include one or moretargeted advertising windows 1602.

The targeted advertising window 1602 may allow for presentation ofadvertising offers that are targeted to the user. The targetedadvertising window 1602 may allow for a business to have an option ofdeciding to which consumer to send offer information and/or which offerinformation to send. With some embodiments, a targeted advertisingoption may be made available to businesses that have been added to acollection of the user. In some embodiments, the targeted advertisingcould be customized to the consumer by the business. Thus, a businesscould develop and/or maintain a relationship with the user after thecollection addition by pushing a special offer to the user. For example,say a particular business has been added to a collection, but no furtherengagement between the consumer and the business has ensued. Notingthis, the business may wish to have the option to direct one or moreoffers to the consumer in order to incentivize further engagement.Similarly, say a particular business has been added to a collection andhas done business with the consumer, the business may wish to have theoption to follow up with the consumer with directed offers to maintainand/or develop the relationship with the consumer. Perhaps, the businesshas not had contact with the consumer in a while; noting this, thebusiness may wish to send a special offer to the consumer. The targetedadvertising information could include one or more of an electroniccoupon (which could correspond to a savable and/or printable discountcoupon), advertising information, promotion information, offerinformation, business card information, any suitable business-relatedinformation, and/or the like. In various embodiments, in addition oralternative to the targeted advertising window 1602, an advertiser mayhave any one or combination of options for presenting offers, includingvia email, text messaging, a mobile app, a website, linked onlinesocial/business networking service(s), regular mail, push notifications,telephonic notification, etc.

In some embodiments, the end-user interface 1600 may include one or moreselected business windows 1604. The selected business windows 1604 maypresent certain business information windows for businesses that theuser has not already added to a collection. With some embodiments, as inthe example depicted, business information may be selected forpresentation as the most popular businesses based on total collectionadditions. Business windows could be selected for presentation based atleast in part on one or more of business location(s) in relation to alocation of interest to the user, relevance of a business to anidentified interest of the user, a number of collection additions byother users with respect to particular businesses, a number ofcollection additions by other users who are related to the user viaonline social/businesses networking service(s), trending of suchcollection additions with respect to a particular time period(s),ratings of businesses, and/or the like. The selected business windows1604 may include collection addition indicators 1606, as describedherein. Along with each selected business window 1604, a user-selectableoption 1608 may be presented to the user so that upon user selection,e.g., a single click, a particular business may be added to the user'scollections. In some embodiments, the selected business windows 1604 maybe selected regardless of what has already been added to the user'scollections, and whether a particular business has been added to theuser's collections could be graphically indicated in any suitable manner(e.g., though not depicted as such, an indicator 1608 for a businessalready in the user's collections could be different than an indicator1608 for a business not already added).

In some embodiments, the end-user interface 1600 may include one or moreselected coupon windows 1610. In some embodiments, the selected couponwindows 1610 may present certain coupon information for businesses neara location of interest to the user. In some embodiments, the system 102could select the coupon information by actively monitoring location ofinterest data of the user and correlating that data to couponinformation retained by the system 102. In some embodiments, couponinformation could be correlated to businesses already added to theuser's collections in order to apprise the user of pertinent offersrelating to those businesses of interest. In some embodiments, thesystem 102 could monitor location of interest data for the user andnotify businesses already added to the user's collections of anopportunity to direct coupon information to the user. Responsive to thenotification, a business could provide coupon information to the system102 for presentation to the user. In some embodiments, the system 102may gather, push, and/or pull coupon information from businesses,business websites, and/or any suitable data source 110 in any suitableway, and then provide pertinent coupon information to users via one ormore selected coupon windows 1610. The selected coupon window 1610 couldbe configured to provide an electronic coupon that could be savableand/or printable. Along with each selected coupon window 1610, auser-selectable option 1612 may be presented to the user so that, uponuser selection (e.g., a single click), the coupon may be saved inassociation with the user's account. If the corresponding business isalready added to the user's collections, the coupon information could beretained and accessible in association with the corresponding businessin the appropriate collection. In some embodiments, if the correspondingbusiness is not already added to the user's collections, selection ofthe option 1612 could also add the corresponding business to the user'scollections, in conjunction with retaining the coupon information forlater access in association with the corresponding business.

In some embodiments, the end-user interface 1600 may include an activityreporter 1614. The activity reporter 1614 could include one or morewidgets, in some embodiments. The activity reporter 1614 may beconfigured to a report activity about the orchestration platform as theactivity is occurring in real-time and/or at a high speed. The activityreporter 1614 may report any suitable information regarding any suitableactivity, such as collection additions, new users joining theorchestration service, new reviews, new businesses joining the service,new followings of public collections, etc.

In some embodiments, the end-user interface 1600 may include aneditorial section 1616 that may surface editorial content. As in theexample depicted, the editorial section 1616 could exposepromotional/editorial material that incorporates links to a publiccollection. The public collection could correspond to a collectionassociated with a celebrity, and could be tied to one or moreendorsements. The public collection could be made available for publicviewing, following, sharing, and/or copying.

FIGS. 17A, 17B, and 17C are screen displays illustrating exampleend-user interfaces 1700, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. The end-user interfaces 1700 may be displayed via amobile application or any suitable end-user interface 105 in variousembodiments. The end-user interfaces 1700 may be similar to otherinterfaces described herein and may include any one or combination offeatures of other interfaces described herein. In some embodiments, theend-user interfaces 1700 may include one or more popular collectionswindows 1702. In various embodiments, the system 102 and/or the end-userdevice 300 may be configured to identify location informationcorresponding to the current or recent location of the end-user device300 and/or user, and use the location information as a basis foridentifying geo-aware selections for indication via the end-userinterfaces 1700. In addition or alternative to the location informationand relative business location(s) as bases, collections may be selectedfor presentation to the user based at least in part on relevance of abusiness to an identified interest of the user, relevance of a businessto an identified demographic aspect of the user, how many users arefollowing the collections, positively trending collections with respectto a particular time period(s) (which trending could be based oncollection additions, collection followings, ratings, and/or anysuitable basis), activity in the collections, ratings of the collections(which could include user votes for collections), instances of sharingof the collections, copies of the collections, and/or the like. Thus,certain embodiments may provide for temporal windowing may allow a userto see businesses trending in the user's neighborhood, city, and/orother local area.

As indicated by collection 1704, certain collection may not be createdby and users but may be created and curated by staff of theorchestration service in some embodiments. In conjunction with suchstaff-curated collections, feedback from the crowd/community may besolicited. For example, incentives may be provided so that users providefeedback on certain collections corresponding to geographical area andbusiness category. In some cases, users may be enticed to add businessesto such a collection. Those that bubble to the top of such a collection(e.g., in terms of ratings, additions, shares, copies, and/or the like)may be given greater visibility in the collection and/or otherwise viathe orchestration service features.

In some embodiments, celebrity collections may be available for publicviewing, following, sharing, and/or copying. In some embodiments,particular businesses, which may include individual or groups of serviceproviders, may have collections tailored for clients. For example, areal estate agent may curate a collection of local vendors tailored forsharing with clients that have bought or in the process of buying ahouse in a particular area. Such a collection could include recommendedvendors that could be of use to such clients, such as an inspector, ahandyman, a pool service, utility providers, lawn care service,housecleaning service, etc. Additionally, the real estate agent may wantto have multiple collections tailored to various categories ofclients—clients in certain metropolitan areas, neighborhoods, incomeclasses, etc.

In some embodiments, the system 102 may track instances of collectionsharing in order to track referrals. Say, for example, a real estateagent shares a collection with a client, and the client contacts amerchant via the shared collection, for example, via a communicationreference provided via the collection, which reference could be aclick-to-call reference, click-to-message reference, click-to-emailreference, click-to-chat reference, and/or the like. The applicationand/or system 102 could monitor for such communications made via thecollection. The system 102, being notified of such communications, mayretain tracking information, which could be used as a basis forrewarding the real estate agent for the referral. In some embodiments,for example, an account of the real estate agent could be automaticallycredited with a referral reward in any suitable form for the lead thatwas delivered. Beyond the example of a provider having an incentive toprovide referrals, the end user could similarly be incentivized to givereferrals by sharing of collection/window information. Such incentivesmay be based on end-user qualification, scoring, and monetizationdiscussed herein.

In some embodiments, a network-specific indicator 1706 may indicatewhether a particular collection has been added by others who arefriends/associates of the user via an online social/business networkingservice, other users who associated with a certain affinity group,and/or the like. The network-specific indicator 1706 may identify one ormore of the friends/associates. In some embodiments, the end-userinterfaces 1700 may provide collection-specific detail information 1708,copy options 1710, and/or follow options 1712, as described herein. Theend-user interfaces 1700 may provide one or more collection shareoptions 1714 configured to allow sharing of collection information inany suitable manner, as described herein. For example, as indicated inFIG. 17C, a collection could be shared via social/business networkingservices account postings, and the collection share options 1714 mayfacilitate that. In some embodiments, the collection share options 1714may include user-selectable options 1716 to restrict the posting to acertain audience. Additionally, the user-selectable options 1716 mayprovide the option to geographically restrict the posting to an audienceassociated with a certain geographical area. The system 102 may, forexample, only make the posting to those friends/associates who haveassociated locations, as indicated by a social/business networkingservice, within a particular vicinity corresponding to theuser-specified location.

FIG. 18 illustrates one embodiment of a merchant dashboard 1800 for anadvertising platform that may correspond to a provider interface(s) 700,in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Themerchant dashboard 1800 may provide a particular merchant (i.e., aprovider 106) access to demographic information about orchestrationservice users that have added the merchant's business to theircollections. In some embodiments, the dashboard 1800 may correspond to ahome page that a provider 106 might see upon initialization of an app orlogging on to the platform. After a provider 106 logs in, different datapoints that can be of use to provider 106 may be presented via thedashboard 1800. The dashboard 1800 may include any software process ormodule operable to present and receive information to/from a provider106, allow a provider 106 monitor advertising information, selectdifferent types of advertising data, identify desired metrics,automatically generate dashboard views, customize dashboard views,and/or the like. The dashboard 1800 may provide a graphical userinterface (GUI) that includes any number and type of user-selectableoptions to facilitate various embodiments. In various embodiments, oneor more user-selectable options may include one or more of ascreen-labeled function key, an icon, a button, a soft button, a window,a menu, a control widget, a scroll bar, a slider, a listbox, and/or thelike. In various embodiments, one or more user-selectable options may beselectable via one or more of touch, push, movement-based selection,and/or any suitable navigation feature. The example of the dashboard1800 is not limiting, but may be illustrative of a mobile applicationand/or web interface 107.

In some embodiments, the dashboard 1800 may expose purchaseconsideration data 1802 about users who have added the particularmerchant to their collections. A purchase consideration metrics featuremay be configured to present access to details regarding any suitableaspects of consumer data capture and consumer qualification. FIG. 19depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects of end-userqualification 1900, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. Various embodiments may employ any one orcombination of various methods of qualifying end users. In someembodiments, an end-user may be simply identified as one having, or nothaving, made a purchase, engaged services, and or otherwise conductedbusiness. In some embodiments, providers may be charged by theorchestration or other service based at least in part on such anidentification.

Captured data may be used to qualify and users. End-user data mayinclude any suitable information that may be captured to indicate,infer, and/or determine which end-users are likely to bring in businessand/or actually have brought in business. An end-user's interactionswith the orchestration platform can be broken down and assessed based onany one or combination of various factors, such as, for example,duration of various directed interactions, locations of the end userrelative to business locations, demographic information of the end user,collection/window development by the end user, content added by the enduser, communications with merchants, keyword analysis user-generatedcontent and/or communications, and/or the like. Based on such indicia,an end user can be qualified.

Some embodiments may employ a decision tree, checklist, workflow, and/orthe like to capture various aspects of consumer qualification data andassess those aspects to infer consumer qualification. Such a decisiontree, checklist, and/or workflow may incorporate any one or combinationof the depicted aspects and/or similar aspects in any desired order,according to various embodiments. End-user qualification data can beconsolidated and processed to yield an end-user qualification score. Anyone or combination of types of end-user data may be captured, analyzed,and qualified.

The system 102-2 may receive and process data regarding an end user inimplementing the end-user data capture process 1902. In someembodiments, the system 102-2 may analyze any information received froman end user, which information may be associated with the end-useraccount and retained by the system 102-2 to provision orchestrationservice features to the end user. As discussed herein, certainembodiments may use a client application installed on the end-usercomputing device 105 to facilitate data capture. The end-user datacapture process 1902 may include any one or combination of variousembodiments as discussed herein that gather information.

Having end-user data, the system 102-2 may implement a leadqualification process 1904. The system 102-2 may be configured toqualify end users in whole or in part. Though certain aspects ofend-user qualification 1900 are depicted as being performed by thesystem 102-2, the processes for qualifying end users may, in someembodiments, be performed in whole or in part by a client application351 installed on the end-user computing device 105 and/or the providercomputing device 107.

Some embodiments may qualify an end-user according to a graduated scale.Any suitable scale may be used in various embodiments. In someembodiments, a scale could entail a categorization scheme 1906, with anysuitable categories. For example, as depicted in FIG. 18, categories1804 such as very high, high, medium, and low could be used to segmentend users by purchase consideration.

Referring again to FIG. 19, in some embodiments, a scale could entail anend-user scoring system 1908. The end-user scoring system 1908 could becorrelated to the category scheme in some embodiments, such that certainscores correspond to certain categories. Some embodiments may score anend user with a numerical expression, for example, an end-user score. Anend-user score may be an assessment of an end-user's potential to engagea merchant and conduct business. Accordingly, an end-user score mayindicate which end users are more likely than others to bring inbusiness, thus providing a quantitative estimate of the probability thata given end user will provide business. By way of example withoutlimitation, a scale could include a range of end-user scores from 0 to100, or from 0 to 1,000, with the high end of the scale indicatinggreater probability. Some embodiments may use methods of statisticalanalysis to derive an end-user score. Various embodiments may determinean end-user score based on any one or more suitable quantifiers.

In some embodiments, the system 102-2 may implement an end-user datalogging process 1910 which gleans data pertinent to qualification fromend-user data associated with the end-user account. The system 102-2 maygenerate and maintain an end-user qualification profile that may includeany suitable qualification information corresponding to a particular enduser. As indicated by block 1912, any suitable end-user qualificationinformation of interest may be surfaced, for example, by way of themerchant dashboard 1800. For example, information about end users thathave added a particular provider to collections could be compiled,analyzed, formatted, and/or otherwise processed to window any analyticsof interest.

In some embodiments, the system 102-2 may implement business rules 1914to take action based at least in part on the end-user qualification. Theprovider advertising with the orchestration/listing service could becharged based on the end-user qualification 1916 in some embodiments.The account management/billing module(s) 112(f) could implement a codesystem by which a provider is charged based on the end-userqualification. For example, a provider could be charged differentlybased on whether end-users are more or less qualified. The chargingprocess could be a performance-based system where charges based on anaddition of a provider to an end-user collection and/or based onend-user actions taken with respect to the particular providerthereafter.

In some embodiments, the charges could be based on end-user score.Charges could be proportional to end-user score in some embodiments.Charges could be applied contingent on one or more thresholds. Forexample, a minimum threshold could be employed, where an end-user scorenot meeting the minimum threshold could result in no charge. An end-userscore above the minimum threshold could result in a charge. The chargecould be based on one or more score bands, for example, one or morescore bands above the minimum threshold. By way of example, an end-userscore above a 50% minimum threshold could be correlated to quartilebands. A discounted charge could be applied based on an end-user scorecorrelated to a 50-75% band. A full charge could be applied based on anend-user score correlated to the 75-100% band. Some embodiments couldimplement a proportional charge, such as an end-user score correlated to75% could result in a charge of 75% (or some other proportion) of thefull charge.

FIG. 20 depicts a functional block diagram 2000 of certain aspects ofend-user data capture, analytics, and qualification, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. The criteria forqualifying consumers may take into account the extent of end-userinteraction. A greater extent of interaction could increase a rankingassigned to a particular user. The user interaction considered mayinclude one or more of interaction directed to the merchant, thebusiness area of the merchant, and/or other merchants related to themerchant's business area. The criteria for qualifying consumers may takeinto account the extent of user interaction with a collection and/orinformation window associated with the merchant, the business area ofthe merchant, and/or other merchants related to the merchant's businessarea. The qualification of a particular consumer may also be weighted asa result of keywords being used in communication and/or commentaryassociated with a collection and/or window related to the merchant—e.g.,the keywords may indicate a user ready to buy, engage services, and/orotherwise conduct business. The qualification of a particular consumermay be weighted more heavily as a result of indicia that the consumermade a purchase, engaged services, and or otherwise conducted business.

As indicated by block 2002, in some embodiments, location informationmay be captured to provide an indication of the end user's location. Asdiscussed herein, various embodiments may employ any one or combinationof methods of capturing location information, including but not limitedto, gathering location information via any one or combination of theend-user orchestration platform profile, the communication device 105,300, such as the device GPS capabilities, access points, third-partydata sources, determining the area code associated with the device,differentiating between whether a caller uses a landline or wirelessnetwork, receiving explicit location information with one or more searchrequests, inferring location information from one or more searchrequests, and/or the like. Gathering of location information may befacilitated by the application 351 of the end-user device sendingtracking information to the system 102. In some embodiments, gatheringof location information may be performed before an end user places acall, for example, via the mobile application. Various locationquantifiers could be assigned to a user based on the business ofinterest. For example, with some businesses, proximate location of anend user is important, say, for a plumber for example. With otherbusinesses, proximate location of an end user may not be so important,or the fact that an end user travels frequently may be more importantsome businesses, for example, businesses which tailor to travelers. Asan example, a number of points could be assigned to the end user basedon an identification of the importance of proximity to thebusiness/category of interest and the location information gathered forthe end user.

In some embodiments, as indicated by block 2004, an end user'sinteraction on the orchestration platform may be captured as data ofinterest. For example, as indicated by blocks 2006 and 2008, in someembodiments, end-user interaction with the mobile application 351 and/orwebsite provided by the system 102 may be captured. As indicated byblock 2010, the user interaction may involve one or more searches. Auser, for example, may spend significant time searching for businessesrelating to a certain category. As indicated by block 2012, the amountof time and/or the number of searches may be taken into account as anindicator of relatively greater interest. The time spent searching aparticular category of service providers and/or the number of searchescould be correlated to an increased indicator of interest in anysuitable manner. Merely by way of example, a number of points could beassigned to an end user based on the time spent searching and/or thenumber of searches. Various interest quantifiers could be assigned to anend user based on search time in a proportionate manner. For example, anumber of points could be assigned for every minute of search time.Various interest quantifiers could be assigned to an end user based onthe user meeting any one or combination of various thresholds of searchtime. As an example, a number of points could be assigned after the enduser accrues 5 minutes of search time.

As indicated by block 2014, in some embodiments, a search pattern may betaken into account as lead data of interest. The search focus ornon-focus may be considered. Certain embodiments could differentiatebetween searches to detect a pattern of searches corresponding to agiven category of searches. For example, an end user might spend 5minutes of searching, viewing results, linking to provider websites,reading reviews, etc., all related to a particular category of serviceproviders, say plumbers in a particular geographic area. Such searchtime could be distinguished from non-focused searching, such assearching related to various categories, which might not be related. Insuch cases, no additional points or a lower number points may beassigned.

As indicated by block 2016, in some embodiments, end-user curation maybe taken into account as end-user data of interest. End-user curation2016 may be assessed in terms of curation time 2018. For example, timespent arranging and customizing a collection and/or information windowmaybe taken as a higher level of interest and be assigned pointsaccordingly. Time spent accessing, editing, and/or augmenting acollection and/or information window may be taken as an indication ofinterest and be assigned points accordingly. End-user curation 2016 maybe assessed in terms of curation instances 2020. For example, instancesif arranging, customizing, editing, and/or augmenting a collectionand/or information window may be gauged to determine interest. End-usercuration 2016 may be assessed in terms of user-added content 2022.User-added notes and/or reviews, for example, could be assigned certainpoints, with more extensive notes/reviews being assigned a greateramount of points. As another example, instances of user-added photosand/or images may be assigned points accordingly. User-added photosand/or images that correspond to receipts, invoices, warranties, etc.may be identified as evidence that the end-user has transacted businesswith a merchant, thus evincing a greater level of interest. Otheruser-added content that could be assessed may include any other suitableuser added content discussed herein, including ratings indicia,preference indicia, etc.

As indicated by block 2024, in some embodiments, an end user'sinteraction with one or more other merchants via the orchestrationplatform could be assessed and assigned points accordingly. For example,if a user adds a merchant as a collaborator or otherwise allows amerchant to view a collection, then that situation may be taken as anindicator of a high level of interest. As another example, if a usercommunicates with a merchant via the platform (e.g., via a type ofclick-to-contact link, chat window, email, text, and/or like means thatis facilitated by the orchestration platform and/or links thereto), thatlikewise can be taken as an indicator of interest. An end user'sinteraction with one or more other merchants could be assessed based oninstances, repeated engagements with specific merchants, frequency ofinteraction (with merchants of a certain business type, e.g.), durationof interaction, type of interaction, and/or the like.

As indicated by block 2026, in some embodiments, an end user'scollection/window share activity could be assessed and assigned pointsaccordingly. Instances of sharing could be assessed based on numbers ofoccurrences 2028, form of sharing 2030, the size of the audience 2032 towhom the information shared, the platform 2034 to which the informationshared, feedback on shares 2036 by others (e.g., in the form ofpreference indicia, reviews, re-shares, etc.), and/or like. As indicatedby block 2038, in some embodiments, an end user's collaborator activitycould also be assessed, with instances/numbers of collaborators beingtaken into account.

As indicated by block 2040, in some embodiments, an end user's publiccollection share activity could be assessed and assigned pointsaccordingly. Instances of collection publicizing could be assessed basedon numbers of occurrences, numbers of followers, instances of copying,feedback on public collections by others (e.g., in the form ofpreference indicia, reviews, etc.), and/or like.

With regard to any of these bases for qualification or similar bases,scoring or otherwise assigning significance to such bases may beimplemented to any suitable level of granularity. For example, withrespect to feedback on shares 2036, type of feedback and extent offeedback can be differentiated and accorded various levels ofsignificance. As a specific example, a simple indication that afriend/connection of the end user likes something that the end usershared on a social/business network may be accorded less significancethan a re-share and/or comment by a friend/connection. Similarly, notall comments need be treated the same. In some abundance, keywordanalysis such as described herein may be used to assess the significanceof comments made by friends/connections.

Accordingly, various embodiments according to the present disclosure mayprovide for windowing end-user analytics that can provide marketinsights to providers. Moreover, various embodiments may qualifyend-user aspects of the orchestration platform so that expansion,collaboration, sharing, and/or other use of the orchestration platformmay be monetized (e.g., based on end-user qualification analytics). Suchmonetization can be used to incentivize sharing, marketing efforts,endorsement efforts, and/or other use of the orchestration platform.And, the incentive position may take the form of a reward system, be itmonetary or otherwise.

Referring again to FIG. 18, the purchase consideration data 1802 aboutend users who have added the particular merchant to their collectionscould be presented based on the end-user qualification informationanalytics. The purchase consideration data 1802 could correspond to anytime period(s). Additionally, the purchase consideration data 1802 couldcompare to past data. The past data could also be presented, however,like in the example depicted, differential information 1806, such aspercentage increases/decreases, could be presented. In addition tosegmented analytics information about multiple end users, any suitableinformation about individual end users, such as a qualification score,underlying qualification data, and/or the like, could be viewable, forexample, responsive to user selection of one or more user-selectableoptions.

Other end-user analytics that could also be presented may includepurchase information 1808. For example, the purchase information 1808may take into account purchases made by respective end users. A lastpurchase of each respective end user may be taken into account, and auser distribution of numbers of end users 1810 who have made lastpurchases over any suitable time period of interest 1812 may bepresented, like in the example 1808 indicated. In various embodiments,the purchases considered could be purchases made with the particularmerchant, with other competitor merchants that end users have added to acollection and that are in the same business category of the merchant,and/or with other collection-added merchants generally.

The dashboard 1800 may provide one or more user-selectable time options.A time period selection feature may be configured to allow for selectionof a time period for which to view certain performance metrics. Pastperformance, current performance, and projected options may be provided.Past performance could show performance metrics for past week, month,billing period, three months, six months, year, etc. Current performancecould show real-time performance in the context of recent activity suchas the last hour, day, week, etc. Projected performance could showextrapolation of past and/or current performance data into future, suchas any coming time period. Projected performance could be based on anysuitable factor, including aggregate performance of competitors in themarket, publisher/platform performance, market data for a particularlocation, and/or the like.

Other end-user analytics that could also be presented may include reachinformation 1814. The reach information 1814 may include informationabout the number of users reached. The reach information 1814 couldindicate one or more of users reached by a particular merchant, bymerchants corresponding to a particular category (e.g., a servicecategory, a product category, any suitable business category, etc.), bymerchants corresponding to a particular locale, and/or the like. Suchreach information 1814 could be graphically differentiated along anysuitable lines. The reach information 1814 could be refined to exposereach information for any suitable time period, which time period couldbe user-selectable. The reach information 1814 could be differentiatedbased on specific platforms used. For example, users reached via theorchestration platform could be distinguished from users reached viasocial network connections. The reach information 1814 could include anyshare activity described herein. The reach information 1814 couldreflect users who have specifically added a particular merchant to acollection. The reach information 1814 could also reflect users who havevisited a particular merchant website, contacted a particular merchant,and/or otherwise linked to a particular merchant via the orchestrationplatform. Any one or combination of reach information 1814 items couldbe qualified according to any suitable bases, e.g., demographicinformation, visit number, value of customer, potential value ofcustomer, quality of leads, social network connections, customer score,etc. And, such qualification could be graphicallypresented/distinguished in any suitable manner.

Other end-user analytics that could also be presented may include shareactivity information 1816. Any suitable share information may begathered, analyzed, and windowed. The share activity could correspond tosharing of window information for a particular merchant, which couldcorrespond to sharing based on an individual window and/or sharing basedon a collection that includes window information for the particularmerchant. The share activity could correspond to sharing between usersof the orchestration platform. The share activity could correspond tosharing by a user of the orchestration platform to a non-user via anyone or combination of the various means described herein. In the exampledepicted, the share activity information 1816 may correspond to sharingvia one or more social networks.

The share activity information 1816 may be segmented by geography, likein the depicted example. While the example depicts segmentation bystate, any suitable geographic segmentation may be employed in variousembodiments, including neighborhood, city, metro area, county, and/orthe like. In some embodiments, one or more user-selectable options maybe provided for user-specified geos of interest to analyze datacorresponding to the user-specified geos. For example, a user may beable to indicate a range, such as a radius of X miles from specifiedlocation of interest. In some embodiments, a user could indicate an areaof interest with any suitable parameters, e.g., including one or morecounties, municipalities, zip codes, distances from reference points,etc. In some embodiments, a user-selectable map interface 1818 may bepresented. Some embodiments may enable a merchant user to define an areaby selecting one or more points on the map interface 1818. For example,any predefined service areas, such as zip codes and/or the like, couldbe presented on the map for selection. The map interface could allow auser to define a perimeter of a service, e.g., by drawing on the mapwith a line drawing tool, cursor, finger/stylus contact with a touchinterface, selection of perimeter boundaries such as roads, rivers, etc.Hence, share indicia may be location-specific and windowed in anysuitable degree of granularity to provide enhanced relevance.

In the example 1818 depicted, user-selectable options may be presentedfor selecting share activity information by state. Consequent to userselection, geo-specific information 1820 may be presented. Thegeo-specific information 1820 may include any suitable details regardingthe share activity. The share activity details may include one or moreof platforms 1822 to which shares were directed, locations 1824associated with the sharing end user, dates 1826 on which the sharesoccurred, times 1826 at which the shares occurred, distinctions 1828 asto whether the shares were individual business shares or collectionshares, information on re-shares 1830, specifics as to collectionsshared 1832 (which may include one or more of comments received, ratingsreceived, approval/disapproval indicia received, re-shares be aparticular platforms, etc.), and/or the like. The share informationpresented with the merchant dashboard 1800 may be presented in anysuitable manner. User-selectable options may be provided forexporting/converting the share information, in whole or in part, and toany desired format, including spreadsheets and other commonly useddocument formats.

FIG. 21 illustrates one embodiment of an offer manager 2100 for anadvertising platform that may correspond to a provider interface(s) 700,in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. Theoffer manager 2100 may be provided in conjunction with the merchantdashboard 1800. The offer manager 2100 may allow for the creation of anadvertising profile and may be configured to facilitate marketingautomation. With an advertising profile, a merchant may be able toindicate specific offer information for provisioning to end users of theorchestration platform. An advertiser profile may include persistentoffer provisioning information that is maintained for subsequent offerprovisioning based on one or more trigger events. An advertiser profilemay be retained in the one or more repositories 128.

One or more user-selectable options 2102, which may include workflows,may be provided via the offer manager 2100 to allow a merchant to createand/or designate certain offer information. In some embodiments, one ormore templates 2104 may be provided for selection and/or input of desiredetails. Various coupon templates could be provided by the system 102and presented to allow a choice of one or more templates. The variouscoupon template options could differ in terms of style, content, form,and/or the like. A coupon template 2104 could include fields for entryof information by the merchant. For example, the merchant may have anoption to designate a service and/or product, offer/discountinformation, start date, expiration date, terms and conditions, and/orany suitable information to facilitate offer information provisioning.In some embodiments, the system 102 may at least partially populate atemplate with merchant information based at least in part on listinginformation and/or previous offer information already retained for aspecific merchant. For example, a template could be pre-populated withmerchant information such as business name, business location, and/orthe like. In cases where there are multiple options for a givenadvertiser (say, multiple locations, multiple goods/services, and/or thelike), the system 102 could identify those options and facilitateuser-selectable options for the merchant to designate.

In some embodiments, a merchant may upload information for use in offerprovisioning, and the offer manager 2100 could be configured to provideuser-selectable options to facilitate such uploading. A merchant couldupload any suitable offer information in any suitable form in variousembodiments. For example, a merchant could upload an electronic coupon,images and/or other graphical/video data, audio data, and/or the like.Such uploaded data could correspond to any suitable advertising content.

In some embodiments, a merchant may be provided with options todesignate certain business rules 2106 for offer informationprovisioning. Such business rules 2106 could specify one or moretemporal conditions, such that provisioning may depend on one or both oftemporal condition(s) and trigger events. Temporal conditions couldinclude one or more of time parameters, day parameters, date parameters,location parameters, and/or the like that could be conditions for offerprovisioning. Business rules 2106 specifying time parameters couldinclude, e.g., rules for handling provisioning in view of a time of daywhen a trigger event occurs. Business rules 2106 specifying dayparameters could include, e.g., rules for handling provisioning in viewof a day of the week when a trigger event occurs. Business rules 2106specifying date parameters, e.g., could include rules for handlingprovisioning in view of a date on which a trigger event occurs. Anysuitable interface features, including input fields, telephone dialerinputs, IVR inputs, and/or user-selectable clock, calendar, and/or likeGUI components could be provided to facilitate advertiser specificationof business rules in various embodiments.

Business rules 2106 specifying location parameters could include, e.g.,rules for handling provisioning in view of a location identified for anend user. Accordingly, with an advertiser profile, a merchant may beable to indicate specific areas for which particular offer provisioningto be targeted. In various embodiments, a target area could be specifiedin any suitable manner, including, for example, by one or more counties,municipalities, zip codes, distances from reference points, etc. In someembodiments, a user-selectable map interface may be presented asdescribed herein.

Business rules 2106 specifying trigger event(s) 2108 could include,e.g., rules for handling provisioning in view of any one or combinationof events associated with an end user's orchestration account. Forexample, trigger events 2108 could include one or more of an end useradding a business to a collection, a forming of a new collection arounda theme, an addition of collaborator (e.g., adding a merchant as acollaborator), otherwise allowing a merchant to have access to acollection/window, a sharing of a collection and/or business window withanother orchestration service user, a sharing of a collection and/orbusiness window with a linked account (e.g., email, text message, onlinesocial/business networking services—one or more of which could bedifferentiated with distinct rules for handling sharing with distinctaccounts), a copying/following of a collection, making acollection/window public, adding content to a collection/window, a timeperiod since a last activity with respect to a business window, an enduser's search relevant to a merchant not already added to the end user'scollection, an end user's search relevant to a merchant already added tothe end user's collection, a search for other merchants (e.g., a searchrelevant to a business already added to a collection of an end user,which search could potentially turn up competitors), and/or the like. Insome embodiments, one or more trigger events 2108 could include locationparameters to allow for provisioning in view of a location identifiedfor an end user.

Business rules 2106 specifying a form of provisioning 2110 couldinclude, e.g., rules for provisioning offer information via one or moreof text messages, voice notifications, push notifications, e-mails,social/business networking services account postings/messages, alertswith the application, and/or other any suitable means. The offer manager2100 may be configured to present an offer that a merchant has set upfor previewing 2112. In some embodiments, the system 102 maysubsequently use any one or combination of merchant-specific businessrules 2106 to identify appropriate offer information options for one ormore of a particular end user, trigger event, and/or conditions. In someembodiments, the system 102 may be configured to automatically provideoffer information to an end user based on the merchant-specific businessrules 2106 on behalf of the particular merchant without further merchantintervention. In some embodiments, the system 102 may be configured topresent automatically identified offer information (i.e., identifiedbased on the merchant-specific business rules 2106) for merchantselection so that the merchant may have the choice as to whether todispatch the offer information.

In some embodiments, the system 102 can select pertinent offerinformation for transmission, select a delivery manner/form, and/ortransmit pertinent offer information responsive to a trigger event basedat least in part on the advertiser profile. In some embodiments, thesystem 102 may be configured to provide one or more offer informationoptions to a merchant based on the merchant-specific business rules2106. Accordingly, the system 102 can filter various offer informationprovisioning options with the merchant-specific business rules andpresent an appropriate subset of those options to a merchant formerchant selection.

In some embodiments, the offer manager 2100 may include a dashboardsummary 2114 configured to present information and user-selectableoptions for offers retained by the system 102 for the merchant. Thedashboard summary 2114 may present information such as offer creationdate 2116, offer identification information 2118, specific form ofprovisioning 2120, offer status 2122, offer expiration 2124, and/or anyother appropriate offer information. In some embodiments, the offermanager 2100 may be configured to present offer suggestions. The offersuggestions could prompt the merchant to create offers that the merchanthas not already created. For example, offer manager 2100 may identifypotential trigger events related to the merchant (e.g., an end useradding the merchant to a collection), and may query the merchant towhether create an offer in view of the potential trigger events.

Accordingly, certain embodiments may provide a merchant with a way tocommunicate with end users that are not only potential customers, butalso potential promoters of the merchant. Certain embodiments may allowa merchant to market events, product offerings, and/or service offeringsto end users.

FIG. 22 shows a block diagram of a method 2200 of assisting a user toidentify one or more businesses of interest, in accordance with certainembodiments of the present disclosure. One or more engines 122 may beconfigured to harvest and qualify end-user data. According to certainembodiments, the method 2200 may begin as indicated by block 2202.

Teachings of the present disclosure may be implemented in a variety ofconfigurations. As such, the order of the steps comprising the method2200 and other methods disclosed herein may be shuffled in any suitablemanner and may depend on the implementation chosen. Moreover, while thefollowing steps (and those of other methods disclosed herein) may beseparated for the sake of description, it should be understood thatcertain steps may be performed simultaneously or substantiallysimultaneously.

As indicated by block 2202, end-user data may be gathered. The end-userdata gathering may include capturing interest data, as indicated byblock 2204. The capturing of interest data may include any one orcombination of interest data capturing features disclosed herein.

The end-user data gathering may further include capturing demographicdata, as indicated by block 2206. The capturing of demographic data forparticular end users could be a part of interest data capturing. Anysuitable demographic information could be harvested in variousembodiments, for example, information about income level, educationlevel, lifestyle, age, family/household, home ownership, etc. In someinstances, demographic data could be provided by an end user as part ofprofile setup and/or development with the platform. Demographic datacould be inferred from interest data and/or collection information, insome embodiments. For example, a user who has a collection directed tochildren or who has added a particular child-directed business to acollection (e.g., a pediatric dentist) could be taken as an indicationthat the user has or is otherwise associated with one or more children.In some embodiments, demographic data could be harvested from accountsthat a user has linked with the system. In some embodiments, demographicdata could be gathered from one or more third-party data sources 110.

The end-user data gathering may further include capturing otherconsumer-specific data, as indicated by block 2208. Any suitableconsumer specific information could be harvested in order to allow forcharacterization of a particular user. For example, suchconsumer-specific information could include information on whether theconsumer is proximate to life milestones such as a graduation, a newjob, a wedding, childbirth, purchasing a home, etc. Consumer-specificinformation could include particular purchases or buying habits of theconsumer, in some embodiments. Consumer-specific information could beinferred from interest data and/or collection information, in someembodiments. In various embodiments, demographic data could be harvestedfrom accounts that a user has linked with the system and/or gatheredfrom one or more third-party data sources 110.

As indicated by block 2210, particular end users may be qualified basedat least in part on the end-user data gathered. The consumer data may beanalyzed with respect to individual users. One or more engines 122 maybe configured to classify end users into one or more categories. In someembodiments, the engines 122 may include a classifying engine toclassify end users into one or more categories. In some embodiments, theorchestration engine 122(g) may be or include a classifying engine. Aclassifying engine may classify each of a plurality of end users into atleast one category of a set of categories that represent classificationsof end users based at least in part on one or more sets of attributesdefined for classifying various end users.

The end-user qualification may include any one or combination ofqualification features disclosed herein. As indicated by block 2212, anend-user may be classified into one or more categories based at least inpart on the end-user data. Any suitable categories may be employed forcharacterization of end users. By way of example, and users may becategorized according to interests, demographics, consumer habits, lifestages/milestones, and/or the like to any suitable degree ofgranularity.

As indicated by block 2214, information relating to businessrecommendations may be gathered. Such information may includeinformation pertinent to end users having indicated a preference forparticular businesses. Preference indicia may include users havingindicated a preference for particular businesses, ratings for particularbusinesses, and/or the like. Business recommendation information may beaggregated from the platform. For example, such information couldinclude instances of businesses being added to collections, beingshared, being copied, being rated, and/or the like.

In addition or alternative, business recommendation may be aggregatedfrom outside the platform. Some embodiments may identify businessrecommendation information based on user indications of preference (suchas positive rating business, an indication of liking the business,friending or otherwise linking to a business, sharing businessinformation with others, etc.) that the user has made via webpagesand/or social media. Business recommendation information could beidentified by approval/disapproval indicators, which may be in form oflikes, dislikes, thumbs-up, thumbs-down, star-scale ratings,number-scale ratings, fan indications, affinity group association,messages to businesses, and/or the like. The approval/disapprovalindicators could be those associated with the user's profile and/orprofiles of friends/associates/connections of the user.

Information relating to business recommendations may further includelocation information pertinent to the businesses and/or users associatedtherewith. Information relating to business recommendations may furtherinclude the date and/or time information associated with the pertinentactivities (e.g., additions to collections, shares, likes, etc.). Theinformation may include any suitable information pertaining to explicitand/or implicit indicia of preference for businesses, interest inbusinesses, ratings of businesses, and/or like, such as the examplesdisclosed herein.

As indicated by block 2216, information relating to businessrecommendations may be qualified. As indicated by block 2218, businessesmay be classified into one or more categories based at least in part onthe information relating to business recommendations. Information aboutrecommendations could be gathered, analyzed, and classified according toany suitable bases.

As indicated by block 2220, one or more indexes may be created based atleast in part on similarities between businesses. The one or moreindexes may link businesses based on the classifications and associatedrecommendation-specific information. By way of example, the one or moreindexes may associate businesses based at least in part on any one orcombination of the following.

Information with respect to a particular business may be analyzed inorder to identify one or more business attributes. In some embodiments,the system may include a matching engine that can receive businessinformation, identify attributes of the business based at least in parton the business information, and match the business to one or morecategories based on category information retained in a repository. Thebusiness may be matched to one or more categories that each representclassifications of business sharing common attributes. In someembodiments, one or more taxonomies that map particular profileinformation to particular categories may be used in correlating businessprofile information with one or more categories. The business could beclassified according to products and/or services that the businessprovides. The business could be classified according to location, forexample, a market that the business serves and/or a physical site of thebusiness. The business could be linked to location identifier(s) (suchas a directory code(s) relevant to the business listing of thesuggestion); geo coordinates corresponding to the business (e.g.,latitude and longitude); and/or the like.

The indicia of preference for each business may be quantified andqualified according to the form of preference indicia (e.g., additionsto collections, shares, likes, etc.). The various forms could bequalified differently to assess varying degrees of preference. Forexample, sharing a business that a user has added to a collection couldindicate a greater degree of preference than simply adding the businessto the collection. Likewise, a user actually communicating and/orengaging with the business may indicate a greater degree of preferencethan simply adding the business to the collection.

Aggregated recommendations may be classified according to usertypes/categories. In a set of embodiments, one or more collaborativefiltering algorithms may be employed to define similarities betweenbusinesses based at least in part on demographic and/or consumer data.Businesses may be classified according to demographic data forparticular end users that have indicated preferences for the businesses.For example, types of users that predominantly recommend certainbusinesses may be identified based at least in part on income level,education level, lifestyle, age, family/household, home ownership, etc.Types of users that predominantly recommend certain businesses may beidentified based at least in part on user proximity to life milestones(such as a graduation, a new job, a wedding, childbirth, purchasing ahome, etc.) and/or particular purchases or buying habits.

Information about user identifications associated with preferenceindicia with respect to businesses may be retained. For example,information about multiple relationships between user identificationsmay be retained. Such relationships could include relationships of usersof the orchestration platform, of a social network, of a businessnetwork, of an affinity group, and/or the like. Accordingly, variousembodiments aggregate recommended businesses and user identifications ofpeople that recommend businesses in any one or combination of forums.The relationship information could include relationship graphs aboutrelationships between user identifications via the orchestrationplatform and/or other forums. For example, the relationship informationcould indicate which users are related as collaborators on the platform,which users are related based on followings via the platform, whichusers are related as friends or connections via the platform and/or theother forums, which users are related as indirect connections throughintermediate users, which users are members of affinity groups, etc.Mapping of related user identifications may be retained to facilitateidentification of multiple user identifications associated with aparticular user. For example, a user of the orchestration platform mayhave one user identification for logging into the platform and adifferent user notification for logging into a linked account.

In some embodiments, one or more of the data repositories and/or indexesmay be updated periodically. Updating may occur at any suitable time.Updating may capture one or more of listing name changes, new businessopenings, business closings, preference data changes, and/or the like.

Certain embodiments may ensure or improve data integrity based onassessing frequencies for particular preferences over time. For example,preference distribution can change over time. There can be seasonaldistribution changes, weekly distribution changes, and dailydistribution changes. Analyzing the distributions may identify popularchanges over a particular time period, such as the last 60 or 90 days.For example, analyzing the distributions may identify: how manypreferences are indicated for a particular business in a particulararea; how many businesses correspond to a particular user types in aparticular area; how the changes impact the collaborative filteringanalysis; and/or the like.

FIG. 23 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method 2300 ofcertain recommendation features for particular end users, in accordancewith certain embodiments of the present disclosure. One or more engines122 may be configured to facilitate the recommendation features. Asindicated by block 2302, end-user information for a first end user maybe analyzed with respect to qualified business information to identify aset of one or more businesses based at least in part on the end-userqualification. The user may be identified based on user identificationinformation and/or device identification information for a device thatmay be associated with a user.

Information related to the user and/or specific to the user may begathered and analyzed in view of the one or more indexes to match theuser with a set of one or more recommendations. Analysis of informationabout an identified user could entail comparing the user information toinformation about other users (e.g., to determine user similarities) inorder to recommend businesses (e.g., others' favorite or otherwisepreferred businesses) for the identified user to review.

In some embodiments, the one or more engines 122 (e.g., a recommendationengine 2402 discussed further herein, which may include a matchingengine) may be configured to match the user to one or more businessesbased at least in part on correlating categories. The matching could, insome embodiments, be based at least partially on comparing userattributes/categories with business attributes/categories. For example,they may be matched according to preferences, certain biographicalinformation, demographic information, interests, location information,etc.

Any suitable correlation process may be employed. A scoring system couldbe correlated to the category scheme in some embodiments, such thatcertain scores correspond to matches of certain categories. Someembodiments may score a match with a numerical expression, for example,a match score, with higher scores being assigned to higher correlationsof user attributes/categories with business attributes/categories. Ahigh correlation may be identified using any suitable qualificationscheme (e.g., a score threshold, a score ranking, etc.).

As indicated by block 2304, one or more recommendations for the user maybe generated as to at least one business from the set of one or morebusinesses. The one or more engines 122, for example, may be configuredto assess matches of the user and one or more businesses. Arecommendation could be based on the highest correlation between theuser and a business. As part of generating the recommendation,descriptive content indicative of a business may be selected, asindicated by block 2306. As indicated by block 2308, the descriptivecontent may be transmitted to a computing device and/or accountassociated with the user.

As indicated by block 2310, one or more user-selectable options toindicate an interest in the recommended business may be presented forselection by the user. Options could be provided for a user to add therecommended business. Descriptive content indicative of the recommendedbusiness may be provided with one or more user-selectable options and/ormay be revealed with user selection of an option. Options could also beprovided to allow the user to indicate disinterest in the recommendationand/or further recommendations.

In some embodiments, descriptive content could be anonymized so that oneor more specific recommendations are offered to an individual userwithout revealing identities of other users from whom the one or morespecific recommendations are derived. Though anonymized, a specificrecommendation could be offered with a general characterization of theother users. As one example out of many possibilities, a recommendationfor a dog owner in Glendale, Calif., could indicate that other dogowners in Glendale have a preference for a particular veterinarian.

In some embodiments, descriptive content may not be anonymized. Certainusers of the platform may have public recommendation information. Realestate agents, for example, may curate a collection of local serviceproviders relevant to those who have bought or in the process of buyinga house in a particular area (such as recommended inspectors, handymen,and the like) and may wish to have such recommendations public.Accordingly, recommendations may not necessarily be anonymized.

In some embodiments, the recommendation may include a customizedcollection of advertising information for businesses. The customizedcollection may be automatically generated by the system for anindividual user based on the analysis. The customized collection may bepresented to the user as a curated collection with user-selectableoptions that allow the user to select and/or de-select recommendedbusinesses for retention in association with the user. For example, theuser may select one or more recommended businesses for additions to anew or existing collection of the user. As another example, the user mayselect a recommended collection for addition as a new collection or foraddition to an existing collection.

As indicated by block 2312, end-user actions may be monitored consequentto the recommendation being provided. Any one or combination of actionsand determinations may be correlated to indicia of greater or lesserinterest in any suitable manner (e.g., based on a scoring scheme). Asindicated by block 2314, an indication/disinterest of user interest bythe user responsive to the recommendation may be processed. The useradding the recommended business to a collection may be taken as anindication of user interest. Alternatively, the user may indicatedisinterest in the recommendation and/or further recommendations byselecting the appropriate option.

As indicated by block 2316, the end-user responses to recommendationscould be monitored for implicit indicia of user interest. For example,it may be determined whether the user ignores the recommendation for aparticular period of time. If the user has not taken action with respectto the recommendation after a threshold of time, such inaction may betaken as an indication of disinterest.

As another example, it may be determined whether the user ultimatelyremoves the recommended business from a collection after having addedthe business. This may be deeded as an indication of disinterest in thebusiness. Other examples may include monitoring for indications that theuser engages with the business (e.g., through communication linksprovided by the platform), develops notes regarding the business, enlistcollaborators for a collection including the business, and/or shares thebusiness information with others, which actions may be taken asindications of interest in the business.

As indicated by block 2318, profile information associated with the usermay be adjusted based at least in part on the monitoring. For example,the profile information may be updated in view of positive responses tothe recommendation (e.g., adding the recommended business to acollection, engaging with the business, sharing the businessinformation, etc.). Thus, in certain instances, additionalrecommendations can be made for the user periodically or at any suitablefrequency, taking into account the addition of the business to theuser's collection, as indicated by block 2320.

The profile information could be updated in view of negative responsesto the recommendation. The system can disable the recommendationfeatures based on the explicit rejection of the recommendation featureby the user. Instances of the user indicating disinterest in particularrecommended businesses may be considered for future recommendations toadjust to the user preferences.

The system could also take into account implicit negative responses. Forexample, repeated instances of the user ignoring a certain number ofrecommendations may be taken as a lack of interest in recommendations,generally, and the generation of further recommendations could be haltedindefinitely or for certain period of time, so as not to provideunwanted features to the user of the platform. A threshold number ofignored recommendations over a certain period of time, without the userhaving taken any action on any recommendation, could be employed todetermine when to halt the recommendation provisioning process withrespect to the particular user.

FIG. 24 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofrecommendation generation 2400, in accordance with certain embodimentsof the present disclosure. Various embodiments may employ any one orcombination of various methods of determining recommendations forparticular end users based at least in part on user characteristics. Ina set of embodiments, recommendations could be based at least in part ondemographic information. Recommendations could be based at least in parton any suitable consumer-specific information that may be cluster-basedconsumer data and/or user-targeted consumer data. In some embodiments,one or more aspects of the functional model 2400 may correspond toassessing/ranking/scoring relevance of recommendations in variousembodiments discussed herein. In some embodiments, the functional model2400 may be implemented as a decision tree.

One or more engines 122 may be configured to provide a recommendationengine 2402. The recommendation engine 2402 may analyze end-userinformation 2404 for a first end user and aggregated, classifiedbusiness information 2406 to identify a set of one or more businesses.The recommendation engine 2402 may generate one or more recommendations,which may correspond to block 2304 of FIG. 23.

Certain embodiments may identify recommendations based at leastpartially on similarities of characteristics of a first end user andcharacteristics of other users from whom the business information 2406has been derived. Any suitable algorithm for assessing similarity may beemployed. Some embodiments may identify intersections between multiplesets of characteristics. Having set intersections identified, theintersections may be compared. A greater extent of an intersection maybe an indication of a greater degree of similarity between the users. Insome embodiments, the sets may be ranked according to the extent of theintersections. Any one or combination of the following aspects ofend-user information 2404 and aggregated, classified businessinformation 2406 may be used by the recommendation engine 2402 generaterecommendations.

In some embodiments, end-user location information 2408 may beprocessed. The location information 2408 may correspond to locationinformation for the user previously retained in conjunction with theplatform as an area of interest for the user, such location informationhaving been identified by the user and/or derived from user selectionsmade with the platform. In some embodiments, the location information2408 may include location information gathered by the system via theend-user computing device 105. Thus, the user's location may be updated,for example, as the user travels to various locations. While the usermay generally be associated with a specific locale, certain embodimentsmay provide recommendations that are directed to a different location towhich the user travels. The recommendation engine 2402 may use theend-user location information 2408 with location filtering 2422 toidentify location-relevant business recommendations. Recommendationscould be scored based on proximity to a relevant location of interest ofthe user.

In some embodiments, end-user platform interaction 2410 may be processedby the recommendation engine 2402. This may correspond to the datacapture and analysis of user interaction further described herein. Theend-user platform interaction 2410 may include information on end-usercollections 2412 and end-user interest information 2414. For example,the current state of one or more of the user's collections could beanalyzed as input to determine businesses already associated with thecollections, similarities with businesses not currently associated withthe collections, similarities with other users, and/or the like.

Further, the end-user interest information 2414, described furtherherein, may likewise be used as input to determine matching businessesand users. The end-user collections 2412 and end-user interestinformation 2414 may be used by the recommendation engine 2402 inconjunction with collection filtering 2424, which could include one ormore collaborative filtering algorithms and/or indexes, to determinesimilarities between the first end user and other users and theirbusiness preferences. For example, say a set of collection/interestinformation for the first end user includes five characteristics,recommendation engine 2402 may determine that a threshold number ofother users sharing those five characteristics have indicated apreference for a particular business in the relevant location that thefirst end user has not already included in a collection. Recommendationscould be scored based at least in part on the extent of commoncharacteristics shared by the first end user and the other users.

In the case that it is determined that the user travels to a newlocation that is different from a location with which the user isgenerally associated, it may be further determined whether businesses inthe user's current collections have additional business sites in the newlocation. For example, a user may have a business already in the user'scollection that is a part of a chain of businesses that includes anadditional site in the user's current location. In some embodiments, anidentification of the additional site in the new location may trumpother recommendations such that the additional site may be selected as atop recommendation for the particular user. In other embodiments, theadditional site may not automatically trump other recommendations butmay be scored, perhaps relatively highly, along with otherrecommendation possibilities. In some embodiments, the additional siteis a recommendation possibility may be further qualified based on othercriteria, such as frequency of user visits to the business in theprevious location (e.g., a chain business may be scored highly if theuser frequently visited the business in the previous location).

In some embodiments, end-user relationship information 2416 may beprocessed by the recommendation engine 2402. The recommendation engine2402 may select businesses based at least in part on the end userrelationship information 2416 and relationship filtering 2426.Recommendations could be selected based at least in part on a number ofrecommendations derived from users within a certain degree of closenessto the first end user in one or more relationship graphs aboutrelationships between user identifications via the orchestrationplatform and/or other forums. Recommendations could be scored based atleast in part on the relationships between the first end user and theother users, with various embodiments differentiating degrees ofcloseness and/or forums.

In some cases, only the most relevant relationships to the first enduser are used as a basis for selecting recommendations. For example,associated user identifications within a predetermined maximum degree ofcloseness between the user identifications of the recommending users andthe first end user may be considered for selecting recommendations.Closeness may be based on the number of independent relationshipsbetween two users. For example, two users may be directly related thougha friendship/connection and may be considered to have a closerrelationship when they are also members of the same group as compared totwo users that do not share a common group. Furthermore, two users thatshare multiple common groups and have friendships or connections onmultiple forums/networks may be considered to be closer than those thathave fewer connections.

In some embodiments, end-user demographic information 2418 may beprocessed by the recommendation engine 2402 to select businesses basedat least in part on demographic filtering 2428. The recommendationengine 2402 may determine a correspondence of demographic information ofthe first end user and other users associated with recommendations. Suchdeterminations may be made based at least in part on any suitabledemographic information, such as, for example, information about incomelevel, education level, lifestyle, age, family/household, homeownership, etc. By way of example, the recommendation engine 2402 maydetermine based at least in part on demographic information that thefirst end user fits the profile of a relatively young, single male thatis a recent college graduate living in an upscale downtown apartment,and may identify recommendations of other users that fit that profile atleast to a certain extent. Recommendations could be scored based atleast in part on the extent of common demographic characteristics sharedby the first end user and the other users.

In some embodiments, end-user consumer information 2420 may be processedby the recommendation engine 2402 to select businesses based at least inpart on buying habit filtering 2430. The recommendation engine 2402 maydetermine a correspondence of buying habit information of the first enduser and other users associated with recommendations. By way of example,the recommendation engine 2402 may determine based at least in part onthe buying habit information that the first end-user matches a categorycorresponding to a cutting-edge technology consumer that tends to adoptthe latest technology with regard to wireless devices for communicationand home control, and may identify recommendations of other users ofthat consumer type. Recommendations could be scored based at least inpart on the extent of common consumer characteristics shared by thefirst end user and the other users.

In some embodiments, end-user life milestone information 2422 may beprocessed by the recommendation engine 2402 to select businesses basedat least in part on life milestone filtering 2432. The recommendationengine 2402 may determine a correspondence of life milestones of thefirst end user and other users associated with recommendations. Forexample, imminent and/or recent college graduates may be matched inorder to identify recommendations based at least in part on thesimilarity. Recommendations could be scored based at least in part onthe extent of common milestone characteristics shared by the first enduser and the other users.

In some embodiments, the recommendation engine 2402 may use timefiltering 2434 to take into account relevant time factors withrecommendations. For example, certain recommendations may be morerelevant to particular seasons or times during the year. Proximity tocertain holidays, for example, may be relevant to certain businesses. Incertain embodiments, a time decay factor may be implemented in order toqualify the relevance of recommendations based on how recent thepreferences were indicated. For example, a time decay factor may be usedwith time-based recommendations (e.g., based on season, holiday, useractions, etc.) so that more recent preferences may be given more weightthan less recent preferences.

Correspondence between the end-user information 2404 and aggregated,classified business information 2406 may be scored in certainembodiments. For example, weights may be assigned to intersecting setsof characteristics, and the weights may be taken into account with anoverall relevance score. Any suitable criteria may be used to identifyand assign a weight, and any one or combination of the weights may besummed or otherwise used at least as a partial basis for deriving anoverall relevance score. Any suitable scale may be used for the scoring.The recommendation engine 2402 may use one or more blending algorithmsto select businesses from a rich set of recommendations based at leastin part on the scoring.

In some cases, only recommendations with a predetermined minimum numberof associated user identifications may be considered for selection. Insome cases, only recommendations having a minimum number of userrecommendations overall and having a minimum number of recommendationsfrom recommending users within a maximum degree of closeness to thefirst end user may be considered for selection.

In some embodiments, the recommendation engine 2402 may rankrecommendations according to popularity of the recommendations (e.g.,numbers of users indicating the preferences) and/or similarity betweenthe first end user and recommenders. In some embodiments, havingidentified pertinent recommendations based on user similarities, subsetsof recommendations may be selected based at least in part on popularityof the recommendations. In some embodiments, recommendations may firstbe selected based at least in part on popularity of the recommendations,and then subsets of recommendations may be selected based at least inpart on user similarities. Various embodiments may balance popularity ofrecommendations and similarity of recommenders to the first end user invarious ways, with various embodiments placing greater weight on one ofthose two considerations or equal weight on both.

Accordingly, in some embodiments, the engines 122 (e.g., theorchestration engine 122(g)) may be configured to facilitate individualselections, by end users, of businesses to retain informationcorresponding to the businesses. The engines 122 may process indicia ofselections made by each end user, the indicia being received via anetwork. The engines 122 may retain collections of business informationin one or more repositories. In some embodiments, the engines 122 (e.g.,the orchestration engine 122(g) which may include a classifying engine)may be configured to classify each end user into at least one categoryof a set of categories that represent classifications of end users basedat least in part on one or more sets of attributes defined forclassifying various end users.

In some embodiments, the engines 122 (e.g., the recommendation engine2402 which may include a matching engine) may be configured to processfirst information enabling unique identification of a first end user,process second information about a first location corresponding to thefirst end user, and match the first end user to a first category fromthe set of categories. The engines 122 may identify a first set ofcollection information associated with a first set of end users thatcorrespond to the first category and the first location, determine arecommendation for the first end user based at least in part on thefirst set of collection information, the first category, and the firstlocation, cause indication of the recommendation to a first end-usercomputing device, and facilitate selection of the first business toretain information corresponding to the first business in associationwith the first end user. In some embodiments, the engines 122 (e.g., therecommendation engine 2402 which may include a harvesting engine) may beconfigured to: gather data about the first end user from one or moredata sources, and analyze the data about the first end user to determinea first set of one or more attributes of the first end user. Thematching the first end user to the first category may be based at leastin part on determining that the first set of one or more attributes ofthe first end user correspond to the first category, and the first setof end users that correspond to the first category may share the firstset of one or more attributes in common with the first end user. In someembodiments, the engines 122 (e.g., the recommendation engine 2402 whichmay include a ranking engine) may be configured to rank a set ofbusinesses associated with the first set of collection information basedat least in part on a first metric, where the determining therecommendation for the first end user comprises selecting the firstbusiness based at least in part on the ranking.

FIG. 25 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method 2500 ofoffer provisioning where recommendations include offers for particularend users, in accordance with certain embodiments of the presentdisclosure. The features of method 2500 may be facilitated by therecommendation engine 2402 with the recommendation generation describedabove.

As indicated by block 2502, one or more businesses may be identifiedbased at least in part on the end-user information 2402 and therecommendation information 2406. As indicated by block 2504, one or moreadvertising profiles corresponding to the one or more businesses may beretrieved and processed. With an advertising profile, a merchant mayhave previously indicated specific offer information, such as coupons,for provisioning to end users of the orchestration platform based on oneor more trigger events. Advertising profiles may be defined via theoffer manager 2100 in some embodiments.

As indicated by block 2506, one or more business rules may be identifiedbased at least in part on the one or more advertising profiles. Aspreviously described, an advertising profile may include certainbusiness rules 2106 for offer information provisioning. The businessrules 2106 could specify trigger event(s) 2108 that could include, e.g.,rules for handling provisioning in view of any one or combination ofevents associated with an end user's orchestration account. In someembodiments, one or more trigger events 2108 could include locationparameters to allow for provisioning in view of a location identifiedfor an end user. The business rules 2106 could specify locationparameters could include, e.g., rules for handling provisioning in viewof a location identified for an end user. The business rules 2106 couldspecify one or more temporal conditions, such that provisioning maydepend on one or both of temporal condition(s) and trigger events.

In various embodiments, the business rules 2106 could specify any one orcombination of user type aspects of the recommendation information 2406,such as demographic criteria and/or buying habit criteria. As indicatedby block 2508, in some embodiments, it may be determined whether thebusiness rules specify user type criteria. In the case that the businessrules do specify such criteria, it may be determined whether the firstend user satisfies the criteria, as indicated by block 2510.

However, in the case that the business rules do not specify suchcriteria, the criteria could be system-inferred in some embodiments, asindicated by block 2512. The criteria could be inferred based at leastin part on the aggregated and classified recommendation information2406. For example, recommendation information for a given advertiser maybe determined to correspond to certain demographic and/or buying habitcriteria, as previously described. Even though an advertiser did notspecify user type criteria, the system may determine a high correlationbetween users recommending the business and certain user typecharacteristics. Thus, as the inferred criteria may be based onrecommender that share similarities with the first end user, the systemcould assume that the inferred criteria are satisfied as to the firstend user. Accordingly, an advertiser may target consumers based onspecific user type criteria, or the platform may identify specific usertype criteria for the advertiser as a potential target.

As indicated by block 2510, it may be determined whether the conditionsspecified by the business rules are satisfied. As indicated by block2514, it may be determined whether the business rules specify conditionsfor provisioning offer information to users that have not already addedthe respective business to a collection. If the business rules dospecify such conditions, the system 102 may automatically provide offerinformation to an end user based on the merchant-specific business rules2106 on behalf of the particular merchant without further merchantintervention. The flow may transition to block 2306 of FIG. 23, wheredescriptive content that is selected for the recommendation may includethe offer information that an advertiser has specified, and thedescriptive content may be transmitted to the first end user inaccordance with the business rules 2106 specifying a form ofprovisioning 2110.

However, if the business rules do not specify such conditions, thesystem 102 may be configured to present automatically identified offerinformation (i.e., identified based on the merchant-specific businessrules 2106 and the recommendation analysis) for merchant selection sothat the merchant may have the choice as to whether to dispatch theoffer information, as indicated by block 2516. In addition to theidentified offer information, any suitable descriptive informationpertaining to the recommendation analysis may be provided. For example,the merchant may be notified that the first end user matches certaincategories that correspond to the merchants offer, other users that haverecommended the merchant, and/or the like. Accordingly, the platform mayprovide recommendations to merchants as to particular users to whom themerchants may wish to send offer information.

FIG. 26 is a block diagram that illustrates an example method 2600 offacilitating features to allow a user of the platform to direct queriesto other users, in accordance with certain embodiments of the presentdisclosure. The features of method 2600 may be facilitated by the one ormore engines 122 in some embodiments, which may be configured to providea query engine. As indicated by block 2602, one or more user selectableoptions may be provided to facilitate queries directed other users.

User-selectable options could be presented in any suitable manner. Forexample, user selectable options may be presented with any one orcombination of the user interfaces and/or user interface featuresdisclosed herein and the like. As indicated by block 2604, one or moreuser selections and a user query may be processed.

As indicated by block 2606, a specific business may be identified basedat least in part on the query in some embodiments, where the queryand/or selections explicitly indicate a particular business. Certainembodiments may provide features to allow a user of the platform to askother users of the platform about a business that the other users haveadded to their collections. A user could identify a particular businessvia a search interface, a suggestion, a public collection, a sharedwindow, and/or the like.

As indicated by block 2608, in some embodiments, one or more businesscategories may be identified based at least in part on the query.Certain embodiments may provide features to allow a user of the platformto ask other users of the platform about a business category and/orsomething related/relatable to a business category. For example, a usermay enter question, and the platform may parse the words of the questionand relate the keywords of the question to one or more businesscategories. Thus, embodiments disclosed herein with respect toprocessing interest data and correlating keywords of the interest datato business categories may also be applied to correlating user queriesto one or more business categories.

As indicated by block 2610, a set of users may be identified as apotential audience for queries. In some embodiments, the set of usersmay be identified based at least in part on one or more user selectionsthat may indicate a desired audience. The set of users could berestricted to users of the platform in some cases.

However, certain embodiments may provide features to allow for queriesto be directed not only to other platform users, but also to users ofone or more networking forms, such as a social and/or business network.A query could, for example, be directed to other users related to thequerying user via a social graph. The querying user may be able toselect one or more desired audiences with some embodiments.

As indicated by block 2612, in some embodiments, a subset of the usersmay be identified based at least in part on user qualification. Anysuitable user qualification, such as any one or combination of the userqualification aspects disclosed herein, may be used in variousembodiments. Users could be selected on the basis of interaction withthe business and/or business category. For example, the subset of usersmay be selected based at least in part on the users having added thebusiness and/or a business in the particular business category tocollections.

In a set of embodiments, the platform may identify a set of users as apotential audience for queries based at least in part on an assessmentof the likelihoods that the users will reply to queries. Users could beselected based at least in part on user interaction with the platform.Users could be selected based at least in part on whether the users haveengaged the business and/or business in a particular business category.

FIG. 27 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects ofend-user qualification 2700 to facilitate querying, in accordance withcertain embodiments of the present disclosure. Various embodiments mayemploy any one or combination of various methods of qualifying endusers. End-user data may be captured, as disclosed herein, and used toqualify users to indicate, infer, and/or determine which end users arelikely to respond to particular queries and/or have a good basis torespond. An end-user's interactions with the orchestration platform canbe broken down and assessed based on any one or combination of variousfactors, such as, for example, duration of various directedinteractions, locations of the end user relative to business locations,demographic information of the end user, collection/window developmentby the end user, content added by the end user, communications withmerchants, keyword analysis user-generated content and/orcommunications, and/or the like. Based on such indicia, an end user canbe qualified.

Having end-user data, the system 102-2 may implement an end-userqualification process 1904-1. Some embodiments may qualify an end-useraccording to a graduated scale. Any suitable scale may be used invarious embodiments. In some embodiments, a scale could entail acategorization scheme 2706, with any suitable categories to characterizelikelihood of responsiveness and/or response quality, and couldcorrespond to very high, high, medium, and low likelihood segments. Ascale could entail an end-user scoring system, as disclosed herein, withan end-user score corresponding to an assessment of an end-user'spotential to respond to queries.

The criteria for qualifying consumers may take into account the extentof end-user interaction. A greater extent of interaction could increasea ranking assigned to a particular user. The user interaction consideredmay include one or more of interaction directed to the merchant, thebusiness area of the merchant, and/or other merchants related to themerchant's business area. The criteria for qualifying consumers may takeinto account the extent of user interaction with a collection and/orinformation window associated with the merchant, the business area ofthe merchant, and/or other merchants related to the merchant's businessarea. The qualification of a particular consumer may also be weighted asa result of keywords being used in communication and/or commentaryassociated with a collection and/or window related to the merchant—e.g.,the keywords may indicate a user ready to buy, engage services, and/orotherwise conduct business. The qualification of a particular consumermay be weighted more heavily as a result of indicia that the consumermade a purchase, engaged services, and or otherwise conducted business.

In various embodiments, any one or combination of: location information1902-1; an end user's interaction on the orchestration platform 1904-1(which could also include interaction with networks, such asbusiness/social networks, through or otherwise associated with theplatform); end-user curation (1916-1) may be taken into account asend-user data of interest (which may be assessed in terms of curationtime, curation instances, user-added content, etc.); an end user'sinteraction with the business and/or businesses corresponding to thequery (1924-1); an end user's collection/window share activity (1926-1)(which may be assessed in terms of numbers of occurrences, form ofsharing, size of audience, feedback on shares, etc.); an end user'spublic collection share activity (1940-1); an end user's previousresponses (2742) to queries (e.g., instances, response-query ratio,etc.); the recency of the end user's activities (2744) (which may beassessed in view of certain time period thresholds); and/or the likecould be assessed and assigned points accordingly, with greater pointsbeing assigned with greater correspondence to the business and/orbusiness category being queried about. One or more the top-rankedcategories 1906-1 of users may be used to select users as queryrecipients, and flow may transition back to block 2610 of FIG. 26. Theselection could be iteratively expanded if sufficient responses are notreceived with certain time thresholds.

With respect to block 2610, users could be selected based at least inpart on explicit and/or implicit indicia of preference for theparticular business and/or category via the platform and/or othernetworks. Users could be selected based at least in part on user type.For example, users having similarities with the querying user may beidentified and selected. The user selection could include any one orcombination of the features disclosed herein with respect to therecommendation generation 2400 as applied to facilitate identifyingpertinent recipients for a particular end user's queries, with the endresult being an audience selection rather than a recommended business.

FIG. 28 depicts a functional block diagram of certain aspects of queryrecipient selection 2800, in accordance with certain embodiments of thepresent disclosure. One or more engines 122 may be configured to providea query engine 2802. The query engine 2802 may analyze end-userinformation 2404 for a first end user and aggregated, classifiedbusiness information 2406 to identify a set of users. The query engine2802 may be configured to provide features similar to the featuresdisclosed with respect to the recommendation engine 2402, except thatthe query engine 2802 may first identity users that have indicatedpreference for the business and/or business category corresponding tothe query and then may apply the filtering to identify a subset of usersas query recipients.

Referring again to FIG. 26, as indicated by block 2614, the query may beconveyed to the identified users. In various embodiments, the query maybe conveyed via any one or combination of notification means such asthose disclosed herein. For example, social/business networking servicesaccount postings/messages, platform account notifications, pop-ups,and/or other alerts with the platform application, text messages, voicenotifications, push notifications, e-mails, and/or other any suitablemeans could be employed to allow for the presentation of queryinformation.

As indicated by block 2616, the end-user actions may be monitored.Responses to the query may be harvested, as indicated by block 2618. Asindicated by block 2620, in some embodiments, non-responsiveness to thequery may likewise be monitored. The harvesting responses could beprovided by way of user selectable options provided via the platformaccount and/or the social business network services, API calls,crawling, pull and/or push user feedback in any suitable way, and/or thelike.

As indicated by block 2622, responses to the query may be conveyed tothe querying user in any suitable manner. For example, the responses maybe conveyed via any suitable interface of a platform application, suchas a dedicated query results page, an activity feed, pop-ups, or anyother suitable notification means. In some embodiments, the responsesmay be quantified according to any user metrics, and such informationmay be presented to the querying user. For example, responses comingfrom platform users may be quantified, responses from social networkusers may be quantified, etc. Furthermore, descriptive information aboutthe users, the selection criteria, and/or the like may be presented tothe querying user.

Referring next to FIG. 29, an exemplary environment with whichembodiments may be implemented is shown with a computer system 2900 thatcan be used by a designer 2904 to design, for example, electronicdesigns. The computer system 2900 can include a computer 2902, keyboard2922, a network router 2912, a printer 2908, and a monitor 2906. Themonitor 2906, processor 2902 and keyboard 2922 are part of a computersystem 2926, which can be a laptop computer, desktop computer, handheldcomputer, mainframe computer, etc. The monitor 2906 can be a CRT, flatscreen, etc.

A designer 2904 can input commands into the computer 2902 using variousinput devices, such as a mouse, keyboard 2922, track ball, touch screen,etc. If the computer system 2900 comprises a mainframe, a designer 2904can access the computer 2902 using, for example, a terminal or terminalinterface. Additionally, the computer system 2926 may be connected to aprinter 2908 and a server 2910 using a network router 2912, which mayconnect to the Internet 2918 or a WAN.

The server 2910 may, for example, be used to store additional softwareprograms and data. In some embodiments, software implementing thesystems and methods described herein can be stored on a storage mediumin the server 2910. Thus, the software can be run from the storagemedium in the server 2910. In another embodiment, software implementingthe systems and methods described herein can be stored on a storagemedium in the computer 2902. Thus, the software can be run from thestorage medium in the computer system 2926. Therefore, in thisembodiment, the software can be used whether or not computer 2902 isconnected to network router 2912. Printer 2908 may be connected directlyto computer 2902, in which case, the computer system 2926 can printwhether or not it is connected to network router 2912.

With reference to FIG. 30, an embodiment of a special-purpose computersystem 3000 is shown. The above methods may be implemented bycomputer-program products that direct a computer system to perform theactions of the above-described methods and components. Each suchcomputer-program product may comprise sets of instructions (codes)embodied on a computer-readable medium that directs the processor of acomputer system to perform corresponding actions. The instructions maybe configured to run in sequential order, or in parallel (such as underdifferent processing threads), or in a combination thereof. Afterloading the computer-program products on a general purpose computersystem 3026, it is transformed into the special-purpose computer system3000.

Special-purpose computer system 3000 comprises a computer 3002, amonitor 3006 coupled to computer 3002, one or more additional useroutput devices 3030 (optional) coupled to computer 3002, one or moreuser input devices 3040 (e.g., keyboard, mouse, track ball, touchscreen) coupled to computer 3002, an optional communications interface3050 coupled to computer 3002, a computer-program product 3005 stored ina tangible computer-readable memory in computer 3002. Computer-programproduct 3005 directs system 3000 to perform the above-described methods.Computer 3002 may include one or more processors 3060 that communicatewith a number of peripheral devices via a bus subsystem 3090. Theseperipheral devices may include user output device(s) 3030, user inputdevice(s) 3040, communications interface 3050, and a storage subsystem,such as random access memory (RAM) 3070 and non-volatile storage drive3080 (e.g., disk drive, optical drive, solid state drive), which areforms of tangible computer-readable memory.

Computer-program product 3005 may be stored in non-volatile storagedrive 3080 or another computer-readable medium accessible to computer3002 and loaded into memory 3070. Each processor 3060 may comprise amicroprocessor, such as a microprocessor from Intel® or Advanced MicroDevices, Inc.®, or the like. To support computer-program product 3005,the computer 3002 runs an operating system that handles thecommunications of product 3005 with the above-noted components, as wellas the communications between the above-noted components in support ofthe computer-program product 3005. Exemplary operating systems includeWindows® or the like from Microsoft® Corporation, Solaris® from Oracle®,LINUX, UNIX, and the like.

User input devices 3040 include all possible types of devices andmechanisms to input information to computer system 3002. These mayinclude a keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a scanner, a digital drawing pad,a touch screen incorporated into the display, audio input devices suchas voice recognition systems, microphones, and other types of inputdevices. In various embodiments, user input devices 3040 are typicallyembodied as a computer mouse, a trackball, a track pad, a joystick,wireless remote, a drawing tablet, a voice command system. User inputdevices 3040 typically allow a user to select objects, icons, text andthe like that appear on the monitor 3006 via a command such as a clickof a button or the like. User output devices 3030 include all possibletypes of devices and mechanisms to output information from computer2302. These may include a display (e.g., monitor 3006), printers,non-visual displays such as audio output devices, etc.

Communications interface 3050 provides an interface to othercommunication networks 3095 and devices and may serve as an interface toreceive data from and transmit data to other systems, WANs and/or theInternet 3018. Embodiments of communications interface 3050 typicallyinclude an Ethernet card, a modem (telephone, satellite, cable, ISDN), a(asynchronous) digital subscriber line (DSL) unit, a FireWire®interface, a USB® interface, a wireless network adapter, and the like.For example, communications interface 3050 may be coupled to a computernetwork, to a FireWire® bus, or the like. In other embodiments,communications interface 3050 may be physically integrated on themotherboard of computer 3002, and/or may be a software program, or thelike.

RAM 3070 and non-volatile storage drive 3080 are examples of tangiblecomputer-readable media configured to store data such ascomputer-program product embodiments of the present invention, includingexecutable computer code, human-readable code, or the like. Other typesof tangible computer-readable media include floppy disks, removable harddisks, optical storage media such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, bar codes,semiconductor memories such as flash memories, read-only-memories(ROMs), battery-backed volatile memories, networked storage devices, andthe like. RAM 3070 and non-volatile storage drive 3080 may be configuredto store the basic programming and data constructs that provide thefunctionality of various embodiments of the present invention, asdescribed above.

Software instruction sets that provide the functionality of the presentinvention may be stored in RAM 3070 and non-volatile storage drive 3080.These instruction sets or code may be executed by the processor(s) 3060.RAM 3070 and non-volatile storage drive 3080 may also provide arepository to store data and data structures used in accordance with thepresent invention. RAM 3070 and non-volatile storage drive 3080 mayinclude a number of memories including a main random access memory (RAM)to store of instructions and data during program execution and aread-only memory (ROM) in which fixed instructions are stored. RAM 3070and non-volatile storage drive 3080 may include a file storage subsystemproviding persistent (non-volatile) storage of program and/or datafiles. RAM 3070 and non-volatile storage drive 3080 may also includeremovable storage systems, such as removable flash memory.

Bus subsystem 3090 provides a mechanism to allow the various componentsand subsystems of computer 3002 communicate with each other as intended.Although bus subsystem 3090 is shown schematically as a single bus,alternative embodiments of the bus subsystem may utilize multiple bussesor communication paths within the computer 3002.

Specific details are given in the above description to provide athorough understanding of the embodiments. However, it is understoodthat the embodiments may be practiced without these specific details.For example, circuits may be shown in block diagrams in order not toobscure the embodiments in unnecessary detail. In other instances,well-known circuits, processes, algorithms, structures, and techniquesmay be shown without unnecessary detail in order to avoid obscuring theembodiments.

Implementation of the techniques, blocks, steps and means describedabove may be done in various ways. For example, these techniques,blocks, steps and means may be implemented in hardware, software, or acombination thereof. For a hardware implementation, the processing unitsmay be implemented within one or more application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), digital signal processors (DSPs), digital signalprocessing devices (DSPDs), programmable logic devices (PLDs), fieldprogrammable gate arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers,micro-controllers, microprocessors, other electronic units designed toperform the functions described above, and/or a combination thereof.

Also, it is noted that the embodiments may be described as a processwhich is depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a swim diagram, a dataflow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although adepiction may describe the operations as a sequential process, many ofthe operations can be performed in parallel or concurrently. Inaddition, the order of the operations may be re-arranged. A process isterminated when its operations are completed, but could have additionalsteps not included in the figure. A process may correspond to a method,a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. When a processcorresponds to a function, its termination corresponds to a return ofthe function to the calling function or the main function.

Furthermore, embodiments may be implemented by hardware, software,scripting languages, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardwaredescription languages, and/or any combination thereof. When implementedin software, firmware, middleware, scripting language, and/or microcode,the program code or code segments to perform the necessary tasks may bestored in a machine readable medium such as a storage medium. A codesegment or machine-executable instruction may represent a procedure, afunction, a subprogram, a program, a routine, a subroutine, a module, asoftware package, a script, a class, or any combination of instructions,data structures, and/or program statements. A code segment may becoupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by passing and/orreceiving information, data, arguments, parameters, and/or memorycontents. Information, arguments, parameters, data, etc. may be passed,forwarded, or transmitted via any suitable means including memorysharing, message passing, token passing, network transmission, etc.

For a firmware and/or software implementation, the methodologies may beimplemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) thatperform the functions described herein. Any machine-readable mediumtangibly embodying instructions may be used in implementing themethodologies described herein. For example, software codes may bestored in a memory. Memory may be implemented within the processor orexternal to the processor. As used herein the term “memory” refers toany type of long term, short term, volatile, nonvolatile, or otherstorage medium and is not to be limited to any particular type of memoryor number of memories, or type of media upon which memory is stored.

Moreover, as disclosed herein, the term “storage medium” may representone or more memories for storing data, including read only memory (ROM),random access memory (RAM), magnetic RAM, core memory, magnetic diskstorage mediums, optical storage mediums, flash memory devices and/orother machine readable mediums for storing information. The term“machine-readable medium” includes, but is not limited to portable orfixed storage devices, optical storage devices, and/or various otherstorage mediums capable of storing that contain or carry instruction(s)and/or data.

While the principles of the disclosure have been described above inconnection with specific apparatuses and methods, it is to be clearlyunderstood that this description is made only by way of example and notas limitation on the scope of the disclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method to assist a user to identify one or morebusinesses of interest, the method comprising: facilitating, by acomputer system, individual selections, by a plurality of end users, ofone or more businesses to retain information corresponding to the one ormore businesses by the computer system; processing, by the computersystem, indicia of selections made by each end user of the plurality ofend users, the indicia being received by the computer system via anetwork; retaining, by the computer system, collections of businessinformation in one or more repositories, each collection of thecollections of business information: uniquely associated with arespective end user of the plurality of end users; comprisinginformation corresponding to one or more selected businesses of the oneor more businesses that were individually selected by the respective enduser for retention in association with the respective end user; andassociated with a respective theme pertaining to the one or moreselected businesses; classifying, by the computer system, each end userof the plurality of end users into at least one category of a set ofcategories, the set of categories representing classifications of endusers based at least in part on one or more sets of attributes definedfor classifying various end users; processing, by the computer system,first information enabling unique identification of a first end user;processing, by the computer system, second information about a firstlocation corresponding to the first end user; matching, by the computersystem, the first end user to a first category from the set ofcategories, wherein the first end user matches one or more categoriesfrom the set of categories; identifying, by the computer system, a firstset of collection information associated with a first set of end usersthat correspond to the first category and the first location;determining, by the computer system, a recommendation for the first enduser based at least in part on the first set of collection information,the first category, and the first location, wherein the recommendationcorresponds to a first business that was individually selected forretention in association with at least some of the first set of endusers; and causing, by the computer system, indication of therecommendation to a first end-user computing device associated with thefirst end user, and facilitating selection of the first business toretain information corresponding to the first business in associationwith the first end user.
 2. The method to assist the user to identifyone or more businesses of interest of claim 1, further comprising:gathering data about the first end user from one or more data sources;and analyzing the data about the first end user to determine a first setof one or more attributes of the first end user; wherein the matchingthe first end user to the first category is based at least in part ondetermining that the first set of one or more attributes of the firstend user correspond to the first category; and wherein the first set ofend users that correspond to the first category share the first set ofone or more attributes in common with the first end user.
 3. The methodto assist the user to identify one or more businesses of interest ofclaim 2, wherein the one or more data sources comprise one or both ofthe first end user or a third party data source, and the data about thefirst end user comprises demographic data.
 4. The method to assist theuser to identify one or more businesses of interest of claim 2, whereinthe first set of one or more attributes of the first end user comprisesone or more of a demographic characterization of the first end user, aconsumer characterization of the first end user, and/or a proximity to alife event.
 5. The method to assist the user to identify one or morebusinesses of interest of claim 1, further comprising: ranking a set ofbusinesses associated with the first set of collection information basedat least in part on a first metric; wherein the determining therecommendation for the first end user comprises selecting the firstbusiness based at least in part on the ranking.
 6. The method to assistthe user to identify one or more businesses of interest of claim 1,wherein the determining the recommendation for the first end usercomprises: retrieving a second set of collection information that isassociated with the first end user and that comprises informationcorresponding to one or more selected businesses of the one or morebusinesses that were individually selected by the first end user forretention; and comparing the second set of collection information withthe first set of collection information associated with the first set ofend users, and identifying one or more similarities.
 7. The method toassist the user to identify one or more businesses of interest of claim1, wherein the recommendation for the first end user comprises an offerfrom the first business.
 8. A system to assist a user to identify one ormore businesses of interest, the system comprising: one or more networkinterfaces accessible from a network; one or more processors coupled toat least one of the one or more network interfaces and to one or morerepositories, the one or more processors to execute instructions to:facilitate individual selections, by a plurality of end users, of one ormore businesses to retain information corresponding to the one or morebusinesses; process indicia of selections made by each end user of theplurality of end users, the indicia being received via a network; retaincollections of business information in at least one of the one or morerepositories, each collection of the collections of businessinformation: uniquely associated with a respective end user of theplurality of end users; comprising information corresponding to one ormore selected businesses of the one or more businesses that wereindividually selected by the respective end user for retention inassociation with the respective end user; and associated with arespective theme pertaining to the one or more selected businesses;classify each end user of the plurality of end users into at least onecategory of a set of categories, the set of categories representingclassifications of end users based at least in part on one or more setsof attributes defined for classifying various end users; process firstinformation enabling unique identification of a first end user; processsecond information about a first location corresponding to the first enduser; match the first end user to a first category from the set ofcategories, wherein the first end user matches one or more categoriesfrom the set of categories; identify a first set of collectioninformation associated with a first set of end users that correspond tothe first category and the first location; determine a recommendationfor the first end user based at least in part on the first set ofcollection information, the first category, and the first location,wherein the recommendation corresponds to a first business that wasindividually selected for retention in association with at least some ofthe first set of end users; and cause indication of the recommendationto a first end-user computing device associated with the first end user,and facilitating selection of the first business to retain informationcorresponding to the first business in association with the first enduser.
 9. The system to assist the user to identify one or morebusinesses of interest of claim 1, the one or more processors to furtherexecute instructions to: gathering data about the first end user fromone or more data sources; and analyzing the data about the first enduser to determine a first set of one or more attributes of the first enduser; wherein the matching the first end user to the first category isbased at least in part on determining that the first set of one or moreattributes of the first end user correspond to the first category; andwherein the first set of end users that correspond to the first categoryshare the first set of one or more attributes in common with the firstend user.
 10. The system to assist the user to identify one or morebusinesses of interest of claim 9, wherein the one or more data sourcescomprise one or both of the first end user or a third party data source,and the data about the first end user comprises demographic data. 11.The system to assist the user to identify one or more businesses ofinterest of claim 8, wherein the first set of one or more attributes ofthe first end user comprises a demographic characterization of the firstend user, a consumer characterization of the first end user, and/or aproximity to a life event.
 12. The system to assist the user to identifyone or more businesses of interest of claim 8, the one or moreprocessors to further execute instructions to: rank a set of businessesassociated with the first set of collection information based at leastin part on a first metric; wherein the determining the recommendationfor the first end user comprises selecting the first business based atleast in part on the ranking.
 13. The system to assist the user toidentify one or more businesses of interest of claim 8, wherein thedetermining the recommendation for the first end user comprises:retrieving a second set of collection information that is associatedwith the first end user and that comprises information corresponding toone or more selected businesses of the one or more businesses that wereindividually selected by the first end user for retention; and comparingthe second set of collection information with the first set ofcollection information associated with the first set of end users, andidentifying one or more similarities.
 14. The system to assist the userto identify one or more businesses of interest of claim 8, wherein therecommendation for the first end user comprises an offer from the firstbusiness.
 15. One or more non-transitory, machine-readable media havingmachine-readable instructions thereon to assist a user to identify oneor more businesses of interest, which instructions, when executed by oneor more computers or other processing devices, cause the one or morecomputers or other processing devices to: facilitate individualselections, by a plurality of end users, of one or more businesses toretain information corresponding to the one or more businesses; processindicia of selections made by each end user of the plurality of endusers, the indicia being received via a network; retain collections ofbusiness information in one or more repositories, each collection of thecollections of business information: uniquely associated with arespective end user of the plurality of end users; comprisinginformation corresponding to one or more selected businesses of the oneor more businesses that were individually selected by the respective enduser for retention in association with the respective end user; andassociated with a respective theme pertaining to the one or moreselected businesses; classify each end user of the plurality of endusers into at least one category of a set of categories, the set ofcategories representing classifications of end users based at least inpart on one or more sets of attributes defined for classifying variousend users; process first information enabling unique identification of afirst end user; process second information about a first locationcorresponding to the first end user; match the first end user to a firstcategory from the set of categories, wherein the first end user matchesone or more categories from the set of categories; identify a first setof collection information associated with a first set of end users thatcorrespond to the first category and the first location; determine arecommendation for the first end user based at least in part on thefirst set of collection information, the first category, and the firstlocation, wherein the recommendation corresponds to a first businessthat was individually selected for retention in association with atleast some of the first set of end users; and cause indication of therecommendation to a first end-user computing device associated with thefirst end user, and facilitating selection of the first business toretain information corresponding to the first business in associationwith the first end user.
 16. The one or more non-transitory,machine-readable media of claim 15, the instructions to further causethe one or more computers or other processing devices to: gather dataabout the first end user from one or more data sources; and analyze thedata about the first end user to determine a first set of one or moreattributes of the first end user; wherein the matching the first enduser to the first category is based at least in part on determining thatthe first set of one or more attributes of the first end user correspondto the first category; and wherein the first set of end users thatcorrespond to the first category share the first set of one or moreattributes in common with the first end user.
 17. The one or morenon-transitory, machine-readable media of claim 16, wherein the one ormore data sources comprise one or both of the first end user or a thirdparty data source, and the data about the first end user comprisesdemographic data.
 18. The one or more non-transitory, machine-readablemedia of claim 15, wherein the first set of one or more attributes ofthe first end user comprises a demographic characterization of the firstend user, a consumer characterization of the first end user, and/or aproximity to a life event.
 19. The one or more non-transitory,machine-readable media of claim 15, the instructions to further causethe one or more computers or other processing devices to: rank a set ofbusinesses associated with the first set of collection information basedat least in part on a first metric; wherein the determining therecommendation for the first end user comprises selecting the firstbusiness based at least in part on the ranking.
 20. The one or morenon-transitory, machine-readable media of claim 15, wherein thedetermining the recommendation for the first end user comprises:retrieving a second set of collection information that is associatedwith the first end user and that comprises information corresponding toone or more selected businesses of the one or more businesses that wereindividually selected by the first end user for retention; and comparingthe second set of collection information with the first set ofcollection information associated with the first set of end users, andidentifying one or more similarities.